Review: SZA’s “Good Days”
If there is any song that’s really connected with the quarantine experience for young people, it just might have to be “Good Days” by the ethereal SZA.
SZA’s first premiered a hint of the song as a special feature at the tail-end of her September 2020 “Hit Different” music video. As the smoothly choreographed video for “Hit Different,” set in a car scrap yard, ended, the video shifted to a part two. Seated on a mechanical bull, SZA sings into the camera accompanied by a guitar track that sounds similar to sparkling rainfall. As SZA crooned to the virtual audience, this first “Good Days” snippet felt like soothing food for thought as an uncertain, harsh summer 2020 wrapped up.
December 25th, 2020 marked the first official release of “Good Days” on streaming platforms, accompanied by a Youtube-exclusive acoustic medley of “Good Days”/”Hit Different.” The home video pictures SZA sitting peacefully in a white comforter at home, singing into her microphone with her puppy sleeping at her feet. The official streaming drop did not go smoothly for some listeners at first. Fans on platforms like Reddit criticized the final production mix of the track, claiming it sounded too distorted and far from the snippet at the end of the “Hit Different” video they were used to. Fans made Youtube loops of the “Good Days” snippet extracted from the “Hit Different” video, which blew up on the site months before the official December 25th release.
After wrestling publicly with these comments on her IG story, SZA re-released another mix of the track on streaming platforms, closer to the mix of the “Hit Different” video snippet. As the official version of “Good Days” gained traction, TikToks and Instagram stories exploded with “Good Days” as their soundtrack. TikTokers guided viewers through box-breathing techniques and yoga flows to the rhythm of “Good Days”. Fans made covers of the track through a variety of musical methods – from vocal acapella to cello renditions. SZA made sure to acknowledge and repost these fan interpretations on her IG story daily.
What solidified this track’s resonance with young people in 2020 and into 2021 is two-pronged. First, SZA announced a hotline in January (888-808-0CRY) which fans could call directly and hear guided meditation, “Good Days” (acoustic or official release), or access a variety of mental health services. Second was SZA’s February official “Good Days” fan music video. First advertised on SZA’s Twitter in a letter to fans calling for video submissions to an email, the “Good Days” fan video was edited by Fahmeedx. SZA’s inbox was flooded in response, and she tweeted that her team received at least 15,000 submissions for the video. The pandemic has taught many young people methods to navigate and embrace time alone, due to social distancing guidelines. The self-reflective lyrics and calming beat of “Good Days” served as a unifying sonic therapy for young people confronted with loneliness and change exacerbated by the pandemic. A spectrum of activities and sentiments fans have associated with “Good Days” is represented in the fan video – roller skating, dancing and performing choreography, exhibiting visual artwork, crying in their rooms, spending time with friends outside with masks on, cuddling with pets, marriage proposals, hiking, welcoming new babies, playing Tibetan singing bowls.
Most recently, SZA dropped a trippy, nearly six-minute long official “Good Days” music video on Friday, March 5. SZA dances, standing in a mossy hill surrounded by life-size mushrooms, and skillfully dances on a pole in a library filled-to-the-brim with books. Yet again, SZA continues the life cycle of “Good Days” via a new unreleased song – “Shirt.” At the end of the “Good Days” video, in an almost identical fashion to the “Hit Different” video, SZA pans to a purple-lit gas station and begins to play “Shirt” as she dances on a pole in the middle of the deserted space.
“Good Days” has had a blossoming career of its own. In the song’s pre-chorus, SZA sings: “Tryna make sense of loose change/Got me a war in my mind/Gotta let go of weight, can’t keep what’s holding me/Choose to watch/While the world break up and fall on me.” And how the world has really felt as if it was constantly breaking up and falling on many folks this year. However, listeners recognize that “Good Days” isn’t a kitschy, 2020-specific track made to vaguely address the events exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic. “Good Days” exudes a comforting call to listeners to pursue radical acceptance in all parts of their lives. “Shirt” will surely take on a “Good Days”-esque life of its own in 2021, marking SZA’s creative prowess as one sustained by thoughtful engagement with her audience.