"These Days" is the title of a song written by Jeffrey Steele

Jeffrey Steele

Jeffrey LeVasseur is an American country music singer and songwriter, more commonly known by the name Jeffrey Steele...

, Steve Robson

Steve Robson

Steve Robson is an English songwriter, record producer and multi-instrumentalist.-Career:He was nominated for a Grammy Award for the song, "What Hurts the Most" co-written with Jeffrey Steele and recorded by Rascal Flatts as well as winning a Brit award and Ivor Novello award for the song "Shine"...

, and Danny Wells, and recorded by American country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 group Rascal Flatts

Rascal Flatts

Rascal Flatts is an American country music band that originated in Columbus, Ohio, United States of America. Since its inception, Rascal Flatts has been composed of three members: Gary LeVox , Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney...

 on their 2002 album Melt. Released in June 2002 as that album's first single, the song became the group's first Number One hit on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

) charts in November of that year.

Content

This song is about a man who unexpectedly crosses paths with a former lover and they tell each other what has happened since they saw each other last. He tells her that since she has gone from his life, most of his time is spent thinking and dreaming about her.

Gary LeVox said of the song, "We knew this was a special song. We’d already completed the album but we dropped a song that we wrote to put this on our album."

Recording

After the completion of recording for Melt, the band learned there was money in the recording budget for several more songs. They then recorded "Love You Out Loud" and "These Days" and being so impressed by the latter they replaced a song they wrote from the album with it.

Chart performance

"These Days" debuted at number 48 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of June 29, 2002. > >

Chart (2002)	Peak position