B-side "L.I.E.S" Genre Hard rock, punk | Format 7" single Length 2:11 | |
Released July 1977 (UK, Australia) Recorded Roundhouse and Wessex Studios, London, May 1977
("This Perfect Day")
Sydney, April 1977
("L.I.E.S.") | ||
"This Perfect Day" is a single by punk band The Saints . It was produced by Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper and recorded and mixed at Roundhouse and Wessex Studios, London, in late 1977.
The single made #34 in the UK charts, the band's only British Top 40 entry. The band appeared on Top of the Pops to promote the song.
Kuepper later mentioned, "I wrote it on my father's classical guitar, on Christmas Day (1976) at my parent's place when everybody had gone to church."
A re-recorded version of the song later appeared on The Saints' 1977 album Eternally Yours.
Baby Woodrose covered the song on their 2004 album Dropout!.
Reception
Critic Jon Savage said that the song, "speeded up the Rolling Stones "Paint It Black" riff into pure extinction. "This Perfect Day" is almost too fast: The group nearly come off the rails before singer Chris Bailey brings everything to a grinding halt in an extraordinary cluster of negatives." He later said the song was, "the most ferocious single to ever grace the UK Top 40."
Steve Taylor said "This Perfect Day" was, "the band's masterpiece. A short statement of resistance – delivered over a chugging beat and inventively deployed guitar." The Guardian considered the song "quite the most startling, wound-up noise recorded under the punk banner to that point. Bailey spat out the opening lines, atop the band's adrenalised clatter." Mojo called it, "an ultimate expression of teenage nihilism."