Song · Haircut 100
“Fantastic Day” by Haircut 100
From the album Pelican West (1982)
“Fantastic Day” by Haircut 100 appears on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1991 and 1999. It was first released in 1982 on the album Pelican West. Its best result is #279 on the Q101 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (1996). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #4,157 alternative song of all time.
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"Fantastic Day" was the third and last single pulled from Pelican West, Haircut One Hundred's debut, following "Love Plus One" and going to number nine in the UK in April 1982. Nick Heyward had started it back in 1978: the chorus came fast, the verses took some careful carpentry, and the words kept shifting until the band finally cut it. He traced the opening line to watching Sheena Easton sing "9 to 5" on The Big Time, and the song's mix of sunshine and shadow to his day job as a commercial artist, shut in a room without daylight while he itched to make music.
The arrangement kept moving as the band changed its sound. Les Nemes preferred the early take from their days as Moving England, which leaned on Talking Heads and the Jam, to the version that became the hit.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 535 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | CFNY Top 1002 Songs of All-Time (1991 Edition) | 1002 |
| 1996 | 279 | Q101 | Q101 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (1996) | 500 |
| 1999 | 951 | Q101 | Q101 Top 1,011 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 1017 |
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