That Day Is Done

Song facts

“That Day Is Done” is one of the four songs co-written by Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello, and released on Paul McCartney’s 1989 album “Flowers In The Dirt” (the other ones being “My Brave Face“, “Don’t Be Careless Love” and “You Want Her Too“). The album title “Flowers In The Dirt” was taken from the lyrics of this song.

Elvis Costello explained the origin of the song in an interview with Mojo in July 2011:

[…] The last song we wrote was That Day Is Done. Again, I had a fair opening statement of it and had all these images. It was from a real thing. It was about my grandmother’s funeral. It was sort of serious. He said, “Yes that’s all good, all those images.” But quite often when you’re writing a song about something personal, what it means to you can sometimes get in the way of what it can possibly mean to somebody else. It needed a release. He said, “It needs something like this…” and he just sat down and played the chorus. It was sort of like a moment, like Let It Be, the creation of a semi-secular gospel song. It was quite shocking when he did that bit. Then you realise that’s what he does. Then he sung the hell out of it. That’s him, really.

I ended up doing That Day Is Done with the [venerable gospel vocal group] Fairfield Four. They could hear something in it. Because it had that great stirring chorus, they could get hold of that and kill it. It was thrilling to do it with them. And funnily enough, it was with Larry Knechtel on piano, who played on Bridge Over Troubled Water, another secular gospel song. […]

From Vigotone:

Costello had begun performing this song as early as the Confederates fall 1987 Tour, and it was always a rousing, almost gospel number. Paul took some different approaches to the vocal lines, which interestingly enough, Elvis began to incorporate into his renditions of the song after the CD was released. Paul has given Elvis most of the credit for this one in interviews, and it is known that the impetus for the song was the death of Elvis’ grandmother. Elvis on the other hand, says that Paul developed the chorus, somewhat in the vein of “Let It Be”. Elvis sings background vocals on this one which also features brass almost in the style of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band from Spike. The words are very effective and spare, in a gospel style. This is definitely the weightiest of the four songs on the CD, and the one that will last longest. Elvis has yet to record it himself, but has continued to perform it ever since its composition.

Paul McCartney in “Club Sandwich 52, Summer 1989“:

We kept the piano (Nicky Hopkins) and vocal and added some Hovis brass to give it a silver band/New Orleans marching band feel…I said to Elvis, ‘Oh yeah, I get it, New Orleans funeral music. House is finished, right?’ It’s turned out a nice track set against everything else on the album.

From “In Their Own Words: The Producers discuss McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt“, by Super Deluxe Edition blog:

I did a horn arrangement on on That Day Is Done, but Paul had already sung it, the drums were done, I think the backing vocals were done, some guitar – yes, we just fleshed it out a little more. I had this idea of doing kind of a silver band, a factory band English horn arrangement, and he just let me do it, you know? He had a few comments while we were doing it, but he said, “go ahead try it”. He is very open, and it was part of the thing, he already knew how to do all the stuff he had done before, and it was a different time. He is open for input and he just sees if he likes it, it’s that simple.

Mitchell Froom – Producer

This is one of the rules of my game. I will say stuff, any idea that comes into my head. And if you don’t like it, you just tell me and I’ll probably agree. But my method is to throw out a lot of stuff and whittle it down. [Pause.] Actually, he was really not a fan of The Human League. I like ‘Don’t You Want Me.’ [Hums the chorus.] I think that’s, like, a classic pop record. . . . I can now see now that me even mentioning the words ‘Human League’ would send him off in the wrong direction.

Paul McCartney – From interview for The Washington Post, March 16, 2017

Last updated on July 29, 2022

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