Brighter Days is a 2011 alternative rock song by Norwegian band John Snow. The song was previously known as Back to Bed, and was a sample uploaded to WatZatSong by user daqva on April 28, 2011. The song was solved by Belfour20 on May 19, 2024.

HISTORY

On 28 April 2011, a sample was posted on WatZatSong by user Daqva. No additional information was given, outside of a now deleted comment that read 'listened on Y-Rock, Philadelphia'.

A collective search began on the FMM Discord Server in January 2023, starting off as a thread.

Investigation into the song led to confusion over Y-Rock, as Y-Rock began as Y100 on Philadelphia radio station WPLY. But when that station changed format in 2005, Y100 was no longer a thing. 2 years later, though, Philadelphia radio station WXPN would revive Y100, calling it Y-Rock on XPN. Then, in mid-June 2010, WXPN would announce that Y-Rock would be getting cancelled due to budget cuts, but it would continue to run as Y-Rock on XPN until June 2011. However, by then, several DJs at Y-Rock had gotten together and created an online radio station called Y-Not. There was a period of time that Y-Rock and Y-Not coexisted, which included 2011.

One user reached out to Josh Landow, who had spearheaded starting Y-Not Radio, but he said he didn’t recognise the song. DefyJoe looked into the label Fueled By Ramen, but got nowhere. We also discussed the vocalists accent, with some suggesting it could be Dutch. Poggatura found a band called Mechanical People, and while it seemed a bit silly, it didn’t seem out of the question since that’s one of the lyrics in the song. However, they were soon ruled out.

The FMM Discord Server also found Y-Rock playlists from the days prior to the April 2011 upload by daqva and scoured through the playlists, finding numerous obscure and forgotten bands. However, a song containing the sample in question was not among them.

PersonOfDistraction reached out to Dan Reed, the music director at WXPN since 2004 and Mike Vasilikos, DJ at WXPN since 2008. Both responded, but neither recognised the song. Dan Reed also confirmed that Jim McGuinn, Director of Y-Rock, was aware of the search but also didn't recognize the song. 

PersonOfDistraction also reached out to several other Y-Rock DJs (Andre Bennett, Fred Knettel, Shamus McGroggan), but none recognized the song. He also contacted Y-Rock's local programming director, John Vettese, who also sent the sample to local show DJ Jake Rabid and head of local programming, Helen Leicht. Unfortunately, none of these people recognised the song.

By early 2024, the progress of investigation seemed relevantly stagnant, with many speculating that daqva may have been mistaken about hearing this song on Y-Rock. 

However, on 19 May 2024, Belfour20 found hidden, archived Y-Rock playlists that hadn't been previously seen, and searched through them for topics relating to 'bed', including sleep, night, and day. This eventually led to finding Brighter Days by John Snow, which was the full song of the sample that we had been looking for.

We later discovered that Brighter Days was played a handful of times - all on the same program, "Passport Approved", which played non-US bands. John Snow, the band behind Brighter Days, was actually Norwegian. "Passport Approved" was an independently run show that any radio station could license, which is why DJs at Y-Rock couldn't identify the song. Coincidentally, a DJ on "Passport Approved", Sat Bisla, was the distributor for John Snow.

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