Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... is from our music collection coz it's yet another day where we have our windows wide open and we're able to listen to our own stuff... which included Greg Allman's "Laid Back," Paul Simon's first US album (the eponymous album), Etta James ("Her Best"), Joe Cocker's "Sheffield Steel," and Lyle Lovett's third album.  You might say we're musically confused; I say we're eclectic.  

So... what to choose out of all that?  This:

That's Gregg's cover of the Jackson Browne tune and it's the best version, for my money.  Rolling Stone (and others) tend to agree:

The For Everyman liner notes thanked Gregg Allman for the arrangement. Allman decided to record his own version of "These Days" for his debut solo album, Laid Back, released like For Everyman in Fall 1973. Allman's version kept to Browne's revised lyric until the end, when he changed "Don't confront me with my failures / I had not forgotten them," to "Please don't confront me with my failures / I'm aware of them." Rolling Stone praised the treatment, saying Allman "does full justice to the quietly hurting lyrics, double-tracking the vocal over a sad steel guitar," and calling the vocal quality "resigned" and "eternally aching." In 1999, writer Anthony DeCurtis called Allman's version "definitive".

Yeah... "definitive" works for me.  The Laid Back album is my absolute favorite among all of the Allman's works and has been for years and years and years. It's the sorta CD that has a tendency to live in my car, yanno?  Coz that's where all the best music seems to wind up, either temporarily or permanently.