34 Years Of “Two Days In February”: A Tribute to A Classic

Contributor Bailey shared with us her thoughts about one of the most iconic ballads the band ever put out, years before they reached worldwide stardom.

February marks a special month the Goo Goo Dolls dedicated one of their songs to. “Two Days In February” appeared on their third full length and it was actually recorded on the street, right in front of the famous Trackmaster Studios in Buffalo, NY. It is unknown why the band decided not to record it in the actual studio, a practice I believe John regretted and years later tried to made up for it by offering a proper re-recording on the song, which appeared on the 2001 compilation “What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce”.

Bailey has worked on a tribute to the song. Let’s hear it directly from her:

Hello! I’m back with another tribute I put together for a special day.
On this day, 34 years ago today, one of the Two Days in February was taking place. And since I absolutely love the song, and know lots of other people do as well, I made this little tribute to the song. It features tons of live performances and the 2001 studio version, most of which have actually been archived in the Temple of Goo.

I’ll just quote what I put in the description of the video, since I explained it pretty well:

“Two Days in February, a song recorded on the steps of Trackmaster Studios in Buffalo New York sometime in mid-1990, written about a girl John met in California and “dated” for two days. One of those days was the fifteenth of February, 34 years ago today. What a way to close out Hold Me Up. A deceptively simple ballad about love (and the loss of), and wising up, tucked behind twelve pounding indie/punk tracks (I didn’t include 22 seconds because, well, it’s also kind of a ballad). 34 years later, we can still hear John make a dedication to “Chief Doug” and “the guy across the street”, and 34 years later, tons of fans across the world enjoy this timeless song. Even though it wasn’t a hit, it’s still a Goo Goo show-stopping classic. I put together this tribute video with tons of clips from different live performances from 1990 all the way to 2004 (live in Buffalo!), and from the original 1990 recording to the 2001 rerecorded studio version. **No copyright intended. These pictures, audios and videos do not belong to me, I’m using them creatively.”

Here is the video…in all of its glory:

I also wanted to include the picture I used as the thumbnail, since it’s actually pretty neat.

This was one of the actual takes of “Two Days”, and John’s sitting, playing the guitar. We get a full view of his long red hair and sunglasses, which you also can see in the clip of the actual video take I included in this tribute (the full thing is also on YouTube). Well, a big thanks to whoever recorded that video! And a many thanks to Johnny, Robby and George for putting together such a timeless song!

Cheers

Bailey

For those who don’t know, I will add the following: even though the song was never released as a single, it was actually featured on the soundtrack of the 1991 movie “Freddy’s Dead”, along with another song taken off of “Hold Me Up” (the masterpiece “You Know What I Mean“) and “I’m Awake Now“, which the band actually wrote specifically for the movie. I always found it strange that the director, Rachel Talalay, did decide to include that many songs from a single band, furthermore by commissioning the latter with a song specifically written for her work. In my opinion, she did because she was a huge fan of the Goo Goo Dolls even back then.

Thanks Bailey for your great tribute.