This isn’t the first Black Keys song I’ve posted and it won’t be the last. “These Days” off of 2010’s Brothers is one of their most haunting and downbeat numbers. Maybe that’s why it sticks with you. Triggered by the forlorn lyrics and beautifully morose arrangement, it evokes an instinctual sense of the one-way nature of time and that no, you really can’t go home again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3umSFd1QYGA
Suffused with longing and nostalgia for bygone days, as well as a rumination on human frailty (“Watch what you say/The Devil is listening/He’s got ears you wouldn’t believe/And brother once you go to him/It’s your soul you can never retrieve”), “These Days” is more like “Wheels On Fire”-era Dylan in its majestic, chill-inducing sense of foreboding than the Keys usual down and dirty rave-ups. But that’s what makes them one of today’s best bands — just when you think you’ve got them figured out Auerbach and Carney hit you in the gut with something so heartfelt and melancholy that it reminds you that there are many facets to the Blues and that the Black Keys, with their sweeping ambition and technical command, are among its greatest modern practitioners.
