Lyrics & Analysis: Any Day


Any day now
You’ll be coming home to me I know
I can feel it in my soul I know
You’ll be coming home to me

Any day now
You’ll be right on by my side baby
And I’m gonna feel so fine
Yeah, when you come home to me 

Bridge:
‘Cause I couldn’t stand that pain
If you don’t love me like you did again
Like you did before

Any day now
You’ll be coming back to me I know
Baby please don’t go away
Save it for some other day

(guitar solo)

Yeah I couldn’t stand that pain
If you don’t love me like you did again
Once more like you did before

Any day now you’ll be right on by me
And baby please don’t stray away
Don’t stay away too long

(Rambling: Baby please come back to me
Come on baby
You’re walking right through my door
Come on baby, come on back to me
I think it’s gonna work out fine
I know it’s gonna work out fine
You’re always on my mind
You’re always on my mind)

Jim Pembroke 1966

Artist: The Pems
Line-up:
       Jim Pembroke, vocal, tambourine (probably)
       Jaakko Kaarala, guitar
       Heikki Kiiskinen, bass
       Raimo Rautarinne, drums
       Pertti Söderström, organ
Release: B-side of 7” single RCA Victor FAS954 (early 1966)
Studio/Producer/Engineer: unknown

General comment: This is the B-side of ‘I Don’t Mind, I Got Mine’, Jim Pembroke’s second single as lead singer and his debut as a songwriter.

The Music: Much of what I’ve said about the A-side would go for this one as well. Only this time we get two four-chord riffs for the verses and choruses with a three-chord riff in between, a slight elaboration. It is all pretty much the kind of structures you tend to come up with on a guitar if you ‘only’ know straight major chords. The organ is less prominent, with the guitar more up front, which isn’t necessarily an improvement. Also, it should perhaps have been considered to let the organist do the little solos in between rather than the guitarist. The singing seems less confident than on the A-side, and the time of year of the recording (in Finland) might explain why Pembroke sounds as if he has a slight cold. Not his best contribution, but still a darn sight better than many obscure and ‘legendary’ British and American singles from the same period fetching high prices on the collector’s market. Sparse but efficient ‘garage’ sound ought to have made this single a classic within this specific group of collecting.

The lyric: Like the A-side this is an okay lyric, musically, simply because it is just some patched together standard Rhythm & Blues phrases that are quite singable. Poetically, however, it is really under par – there is practically no real content here and certainly nothing that the world hasn’t heard before, and many times over. Once again, the poor narrator had been left by his girlfriend and is looking for different ways to cope with it.

The only interesting phrase is ‘I couldn’t stand that pain’. The Dylan-esque idea of using ‘that’ instead of ‘the’ gives a certain rustic American feel, which draws the listener into the lyric by seemingly referring to something that is already a well-established fact between the singer and his audience. It is a visually small but emotionally effective lyrical feature that Pembroke would employ abundantly later on.

-- Claes Johansen, 2007