"Hard Days" is a song recorded by American

country rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

artist

Brantley Gilbert Brantley Keith Gilbert (born January 20, 1985) is an American country rock singer, songwriter and record producer from Jefferson, Georgia. He was originally signed to Colt Ford's label, Average Joes Entertainment, where he released '' Modern D ...

. He co-wrote the song with Jimi Bell, Brock Berryhill, Jay Brunswick, and Logan Wall. It was a single off the deluxe edition of Gilbert's fifth studio album '' Fire & Brimstone''. He released an acoustic version to celebrate the release of the deluxe album.

Background and development

Gilbert released "Hard Days" amidst the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, and remarked that he hoped the song "offers healing and encouragement in all of the hard times and the hard days in your life," adding it is "about finding hope, or just acknowledging hope and being able to appreciate the bad that leads to the good in your life". The song was originally written in 2018 by the other four songwriters and sent to Gilbert. He does not usually cut outside songs, so he initially did not record it. After the onset of the pandemic, Gilbert went back to the song and made some alterations to it in order to make it feel authentic from him. He stated that what the four songwriters had originally wrote was "absolutely amazing", and that he "made the story mine and changed some things to where it was in my language". As a recovering addict, Gilbert loved "Hard Days" as it did not attempt to tell people how to deal with hard times, saying one of his least favourite things while dealing with tough situations was hearing people say "I know what you're going through", because everyone's life experiences "are so drastically different". He found the song to be more conversational, and about taking "the good with the bad".

Critical reception

"Hard Days" was released to largely positive reviews. Angela Stefano of ''Taste of Country'' described the song as "more muted than Gilbert's usual rock-tinged fare," saying it "offers hope" both "sonically and lyrically". ''JR Country'' stated that the track "delivers on its message of sticking out the difficult times for the lessons they impart, the life experiences they bring and the perspective gained from them". Andrew Wendowski of ''Country Now'' called the song "uplifting," calling it as a "reminder that difficult times do pass and we often come out strengthened by what we’ve endured". Chris Parton of ''Sounds Like Nashville'' referred to the track as an "acoustic ballad with resilient core", saying it puts Gilbert's "gruff vocal in a tender setting," yet "deep down it's all about toughness".

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. * Adam Ayan – master engineering * Jimi Bell – songwriting * Jay Brunswick — songwriting * Brock Berryhill – programming, songwriting *

– lead vocals, songwriting * Mike "Frog" Griffith – production coordination *

Dann Huff Dann Lee Huff (born November 15, 1960) is an American record producer, studio guitarist, and songwriter. For his work as a producer in the country music genre, he has won several awards, including the ''Musician of the Year'' award in 2001, 2004 ...

— acoustic guitar,

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

* Charlie Judge —

Hammond B3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

, piano,

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

Chris McHugh Chris McHugh (born 1964) is an American musician from Camden, NJ. He began his career as the drummer of Christian rock band White Heart from 1986 to 1989. McHugh toured and played as a session drummer with artists such as Aaron Neville, Pe ...

– drums, recording * Justin Niebank – mixing * Doug Rich — production coordination * Janice Soled — production coordination * Russell Terrell — recording, background vocals *

Ilya Toshinsky Bering Strait was a Russian country music band, whose style was sometimes called "redgrass". In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show ''60 Minutes''. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first al ...

— acoustic guitar, electric guitar * Logan Wall — songwriting

Charts

Release history

References

{{authority control 2020 singles 2020 songs Brantley Gilbert songs Songs written by Brock Berryhill Songs written by Brantley Gilbert Song recordings produced by Dann Huff Big Machine Records singles