Saturday Flashback: American Authors – Best Day Of My Life

“I think I got it when the bells chimed in.”

Tom: I was briefly hopeful this was a Modern Romance cover. It’s not, is it?

Tim: No, but THAT’s a song I’d like to thank you for introducing me to.

Tom: Introducing you to?! Mate, the Baha Men inexplicably covered this in Shrek. Black Lace covered it, unnecessarily. I am baffled that you’ve never heard this before. Anyway. Yes. Sorry. You had the actual flashback we’re doing.

Tim: Yes, and there’s a story to it: for some reason, everyone was a bit miserable today at work (Thursday, as I write this). I, on the other hand, was not, possibly because I heard this blasting out of Jamie’s Italian as I walked past on my way in.

Tom: That sounds a lot like a Fall Out Boy track (with a bit of this one in too). I was about to go off on a riff about that, but it turns out the two songs were released about a month apart, so it’s just two similar bands making similar decisions.

Tim: I’d say that’s fair, although you’re certainly not wrong about that first one, the vocal style’s incredibly similar. But the thing is, I was all set to write a sentence here about having to be in the right mood, because otherwise that twigging banjo might get you in precisely the wrong way, but otherwise it’s chirpy, and generally lovely.

Tom: It is, although I’m so used to this sound being all Angry And Emotional that it took me a while to adjust to that. I think I got it when the bells chimed in.

Tim: Right, and that’s all fine, but then I realised I’d never seen the video for it before, and wow does that take priority. We’ve had folks dressed as animals multiple times previously, but never had a metaphor from the lyrics put literally in the video, or at least not that I can remember. Here, it makes it thoroughly entertaining, and it’s a fantastic idea, because now every time I hear that line, I’ll think back to this video. I’ll remember exactly how much fun it is, and then how much I like the song. It’s genius.