"Day-In Day-Out" is a song recorded by the English singer David Bowie, serving as the opening track for his seventeenth studio album, Never Let Me Down (1987).
An R&B track, "Day-In Day-Out" criticizes the treatment of the homeless in the United States at that time, and deals with the depths to which a young mother sinks to feed her child.
Commercially, "Day-In Day-Out" was the most successful single from Never Let Me Down, peaking at number 17 in the United Kingdom as well as charting within the top 40 in several other countries.
[2] The singer penned the song out of concern for the treatment of the homeless in the United States,[3] a foray into social commentary that he would further pursue with his grunge-precursor band Tin Machine two years later.
"[5] The lyrics of the song were compared by one writer to those of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" (1980), and deal with the depths a young mother has to sink to feed her child.
[10] For the re-recorded version of the song, album engineer Mario J. McNulty discovered from the original master tapes that Bowie had recorded the Borneo Horns (Stanley Harrison, Lenny Pickett, Steve Elson and Arif Mardin) playing live for the song, but had elected to replace them with synthesized horns.
[6][16] Bowie biographer Nicholas Pegg called the track "frustrating", for on one hand being "a pretty fine song", but on the other, "[encapsulating] everything that's initially promising but ultimately infuriating" about the album.
[17] Pegg agreed, calling it "arguably one of the best tracks from the whole [Never Let Me Down recording] session", and thought it might have been a hit if Bowie had released it as a single on its own.
"[18] Julien Temple and Bowie co-directed the video, which made the song's message explicit, showing a young couple's struggle against an uncaring society.
[20] Tony Selznik taught Bowie to roller skate for the video, recalling in 2013, "David came across as very humble and in between careers, almost.
"[19] The music video was banned by some TV stations, even after edits removed the female protagonist's heavily implied rape, swapped in an alternate version of a scene where the couple's child spells out "Mom", "Food" and "Fuck" in building blocks (words which represented the child's cycle of dependency; the alternate version had the child spell out the meaningless words "Mom", "Look" and "Luck"),[4] and removed a closing scene of a young man urinating on Ronald Reagan's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
[4] A limited edition release (EAX 230) of the second 7" single issued in the United Kingdom contained a 7" red vinyl disc in a numbered box with a set of stickers and a photo booklet.