Day After Day - Remastered 2010

Badfinger guitarist Peter Ham wrote this song, which has a pleasing melody but tells the story about a lovelorn guy stuck in his lonely room day after day. It was one of a handful of hits for Badfinger, and their highest charting song in America. Their story turned tragic when in 1975, after a dispute with their record label over missing money, Ham committed suicide.

George Harrison produced this song and played guitar on it. The year before, members of Badfinger played on Harrison's first solo album, All Things Must Pass. Harrison then started producing Badfinger's Straight Up album, but midway through got sidetracked organizing the Concert for Bangla Desh, which Badfinger played as part of his backing band. Todd Rundgren was brought in to finish the album.

This sounds a lot like The Beatles, leading to inevitable comparisons, especially since the bands were associated. Badfinger was one of the first bands to sign with The Beatles' label, Apple Records. As a result, they got to know the group quite well and picked up on their sound. Apple seemed like a good place to hitch their wagon, but it ended up being disastrous. The Straight Up album did very well thanks to "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue," but Apple was in such disarray that Badfinger had to leave the label soon after. They recorded one more album for Apple before signing with Warner Bros., and ended up in disputes with both labels that froze their finances in 1975 and kept them from recording. Badfinger (and their management) made some very poor business decisions that contributed to their downfall. Much of their strategy involved funneling their money through a corporation in an effort to avoid taxes, but that left with no idea what was going on and no way to trace it.