Tidy Tunes 2019 #17/28 Tomorrow's Just Another Day - Madness

Tomorrow's Just Another Day - Madness
Stiff Records
Released February 1983
UK Chart #8

Tomorrow's Just Another Day - Madness with Elvis Costello on Vocals

B-Side of the 12" Single

'Tomorrow's Just Another Day' was the second single to be released from what many say is the band's best album, 'The Rise and Fall', that was issued in October 1982. It was written by Cathal Smyth (Chas Smash) and was actually the only single of theirs to be released as a Double A-Side, the Chris Foreman song 'Madness (Is All in the Mind)' was the flip side.

Madness always had that uncanny ability to take a bit of a dark subject lyrically and add a little sweetness to it musically to kind of soften the blow of what was being sung and sometimes it's actually a good thing that a song can make you sit and think about your own circumstances.

I'm not totally certain what the situation Cathal was writing about but John Reed in the excellent book 'House of Fun - The Story of Madness' (Omnibus Press) speaks of it as a "contemplative ode of personal regret" (p216), and in the same book the only light Smyth shines upon it was to say, "It represented how I felt, some friendships I was in...How your actions were misinterpreted" (also p216).

It almost comes across as if he is trying to make an effort at fixing a relationship but seems to be getting nowhere ("Trying hard, I thought I'd done my best/All my life, I can't get no rest") and whoever it is that he's talking about seems to have given up on him ("Some who've closed the door before/Say I can't carry on no more").

All of this struggle can often bring confusion and depression and you can well understand the response:

"Listened long, tried to take it in
All these facts leave me in the swim
It's down and down there is no up

 I think that I've run out of luck".

and:

 "I need a moment to reflect

 On the friendships I have wrecked".

"I hear them say
And it gets better every day
I hear them say
Tomorrow's just another day".

But the issue is that it doesn't get "better every day" because clearly he is trying to mend fences ("don't I always try?") and yet the very people who seem to have written him off are the ones not making an effort to allow those fences to be mended.

I know for myself that (especially when I was heavy drinker) I alienated friends and wrecked a few friendships along the way. A few of those relationships were restored but others did not survive.

I don't know if I'm reading too much into the song with that but I'll put it out there for your consideration.