This Is the Day by The The is one of those rare songs that captures a paradoxical emotional duality: melancholic optimism. It's the kind of track that gently whispers to the listener about change, renewal, and inevitability, all wrapped up in an oddly uplifting musical package. Released in 1983 as part of the debut album Soul Mining, it immediately stood out for its lyrical depth, distinctive instrumentation, and the vulnerability of Matt Johnson’s vocal performance. What makes the song endure isn’t just its composition or the mood it creates—though both are masterful—but how it manages to exist in that liminal space between hope and resignation. For those who have ever stared out a rainy window wondering if tomorrow will feel any different, This Is the Day offers both a mirror and a possible answer.
The song opens with a harpsichord—a rare choice for a post-punk or new wave track, but an immediately effective one. It gives the piece an almost baroque flavor, something slightly out of time, as though we’re being transported somewhere both nostalgic and forward-facing. The accordion weaves in subtly, played by session musician Tom “Slim” MacDonald, and before long the gentle rhythm picks up, like a train slowly leaving a station with measured determination. It’s not a burst of excitement; it’s a quiet propulsion. There’s a sense of reluctant movement, of inevitability—the kind of shift that feels less like a choice and more like a season changing. When Matt Johnson begins to sing, his voice is low, steady, and introspective. He doesn’t sound like he’s making a declaration so much as thinking out loud, not so much performing as offering an unfiltered internal monologue.
“This is the day your life will surely change,” he sings, with a sincerity that avoids any trace of grandiosity. It’s not shouted or drenched in bombast. There’s no sense of celebration, but rather a tender acknowledgement that transformation might not feel like fireworks; sometimes it feels like a quiet sigh. What gives the line its emotional weight is its ambiguity. It could be interpreted as hopeful—a fresh start—or as a kind of mournful warning. The beauty of the lyric is that it doesn’t tell you how to feel. It simply states what is, and you bring your own context to it.
Matt Johnson, the driving creative force behind The The, was never one to shy away from deep emotional and philosophical introspection. On Soul Mining, he explored themes of longing, identity, political unrest, and personal disillusionment. Yet, This Is the Day stood out even among the album’s other introspective tracks because it cloaked its weighty existential questions in deceptively upbeat packaging. The melody is light, the instrumentation catchy, and the production glimmers with clarity and restraint. There’s a sunny melancholy to the arrangement, like a smile through tears. It’s the kind of song that could play during a montage in a film about someone picking up the pieces of their life and deciding—tentatively—to try again.
One of the most profound elements of the track is its emotional universality. Whether you’re 18 or 80, the lyrics feel applicable. Who hasn’t sat alone in a room at some point and thought, “This can’t be it; things have to change”? Johnson doesn’t offer a roadmap for how life might change, nor does he promise that change will be for the better. He simply opens the door to the possibility of movement. That’s what makes the song so enduring: it recognizes that change is both constant and deeply personal. Some people find their lives changing through dramatic events, others through the slow erosion of routine until one day, everything feels different. This Is the Day makes space for both.
There's an emotional courage in the vulnerability that Johnson shares. The song feels like it’s being sung by someone who's been through something, who has come out the other side not necessarily wiser or stronger, but simply changed. There’s no posturing, no sense of needing to perform resilience. It’s this kind of honesty that gives the song its gravity. Even in its lightest musical moments, there’s a shadow that lingers underneath, a reminder that life is always pushing forward, with or without our permission.
As the track continues, layers build in a subtle but intentional way. The bassline remains steady, anchoring the track in a groove that never becomes overwhelming. The percussion is tight and minimalistic, avoiding any flashiness in favor of emotional clarity. Each instrument plays its part not to impress, but to support. It’s a rare example of a pop song in which every element knows its place, where the sum truly is greater than its parts. The restraint shown in the arrangement makes the emotional core shine even more brightly.
Culturally, the song has taken on a life of its own. It's often used in films, television shows, and advertisements that are trying to evoke a sense of nostalgic hope—like the memory of a day when you believed something good might happen. Yet for all the ways in which it’s been commercialized, the song has never lost its soul. That’s partly because its message is so deeply human. No matter where or how you hear it, the central sentiment resonates: change is coming, even if you can’t see it yet.
Matt Johnson’s relationship with fame and the music industry has always been complicated, and that complexity adds another layer of interest to this track. Rather than chasing chart success, he’s often retreated from the spotlight, preferring to let the work speak for itself. This lends This Is the Day a kind of timeless integrity. It wasn’t created to dominate airwaves or define an era, though it’s become emblematic of a certain 1980s emotional palette. It was crafted with care, precision, and a desire to communicate something honest. That honesty has helped it endure in a musical landscape that often favors spectacle over substance.
There’s also something to be said about the song’s lack of traditional resolution. It ends not with a bang, but with a gentle fade, as if to say, “This isn’t the end; this is just where we pause.” That’s reflective of the song’s central theme: transformation doesn’t arrive all at once. It seeps in slowly, in the quiet moments between decisions, in the pauses between words. Just as the music gently trails off, life moves on—sometimes with clarity, sometimes with confusion, but always forward.
For longtime fans of The The, This Is the Day represents a touchstone. It’s one of the first songs that truly captured Matt Johnson’s unique voice—not just vocally, but artistically. It signaled what was to come: a career defined by fearlessness, by emotional and political inquiry, and by a refusal to conform. For new listeners, the song often serves as an entry point, the moment that makes them curious enough to explore the rest of Johnson’s work. And what they find is a catalog rich with similarly thoughtful, incisive music.
Listening to This Is the Day now, decades after its initial release, it feels more relevant than ever. In a world defined by rapid change, uncertainty, and emotional fatigue, there’s something deeply comforting in hearing a voice that acknowledges those feelings without trying to solve them. Instead of offering easy answers, the song simply creates space for reflection. It says: here you are, standing on the cusp of something. You may not know what it is yet, but it’s coming. And you have the capacity to meet it, whatever “it” might be.
It’s remarkable that a song so understated in its delivery can have such a profound emotional impact. But that’s the power of Matt Johnson’s songwriting. He understands that sometimes, the quietest voices are the ones that resonate the longest. This Is the Day doesn’t need to shout to be heard. It simply plays, patiently, waiting for the listener to catch up to what it’s saying. And once you do, it stays with you, like a conversation you keep returning to in your mind, long after it’s ended.
Ultimately, the lasting legacy of This Is the Day lies in its ability to articulate something that most people feel but struggle to express: that strange, fluttering sensation that comes when you realize something has to give, that things cannot remain as they are. It captures that threshold moment with rare precision, not through melodrama, but through understatement. It doesn’t promise a new life. It simply notes that one is possible—and sometimes, that’s enough.
