[3] The title was presumably a play of words on a line from the Victorian hymn, "We rest on thee", "the gates of pearly splendour".

The song had, according to Stuart Bailie of BBC Radio Ulster, a "flickering, almost documentary style" in which it took listeners to the more run-down parts of Ballymena where people walked through rubble bare-foot looking old beyond their years.

"[4] Some of McWilliams' vocals were recorded using a telephone line from a phone box near the studio, generating a low-tech effect, and giving the song a 'strange "phoned-in" chorus'.

[3] The record was originally released in October 1967 as the B-side of "Harlem Lady",[5] but "Days of Pearly Spencer" received considerable exposure on Radio Caroline, of which Solomon was an executive, and in adverts in the UK music press.

[3] The video clip created for the song contains footage of the singer playing his guitar on the wharf close to the Oudegracht, the main canal in the centre of Utrecht, the Netherlands, easily recognizable for those who live(d) in that city.

[3] In 2012, Stuart Bailie of Radio Ulster called "Harlem Lady", the A-side, a "quality tune" and "Pearly Spencer" a "remarkable record".

In a review from the parent album Tenement Symphony, Ned Raggett of AllMusic called it 'the surprise U.K. hit single of the bunch, the gentle and (for Trevor Horn) understated "The Days of Pearly Spencer", another '60s cover given the Almond treatment to good effect'.