Cusp Song of the Day: Our Day Will Come

In November 1975, Frankie Valli came within one chart position of the top 10 with "Our Day Will Come," a cover of the 1963 Ruby and the Romantics song also recorded over the years by Doris Day, the Carpenters, k.d. lang, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse and Katherine McPhee on Smash earlier this year. Even the Supremes recorded it, in 1965, one of Mary Wilson's few Diana Ross-era leads. (It was not released until 40 years later, on the shelved album There's a Place for Us.) The song was composed by Bob Hilliard and Mort Garson, who surely made a fortune on it over the past 50 years.

 

Valli's version features Patti Austin and hits just the right balance - not too slow, not too disco-y. It's the title of Cusp's Chapter 11 and appears twice in the book: once in the diner where Karen, Mark and Craig are talking about being gay and whether, as Craig confidently puts it, "Anybody can be had.” Karen, annoyed, feels he's trying to "recruit" Mark. “You sound awfully sure of yourself,” she says, but he just shrugs and drops a dime to play "Our Day Will Come."

Later, after a New Year's Eve debacle, the song comes on the radio and reminds Karen of its earlier airing: "I can’t take the radio any more. 'Our Day Will Come' almost did me in. I prefer to program my own despair."