These Days Lyrics!?
 

In my mind it has always been like this:

"These days, the stars seem out of reach
These days, there ain't a ladder on these streets"

and

"These days, the stars ain't out of reach
But these days, there ain't a ladder on these streets"

Implying that they are not out of reach, only harder to reach.

However, the official lyrics are always "the stars seem out of reach" which Jon always sings live. Yet, on the album it sounds like he always sings "ain't".

So, what the deal with that? Give it me your thoughts!

Update 1 :

I was too quick... "The stars ain't out of reach" is sometimes sung live....

Like in this one:


And also this one, but Jon also sings "seems" at the end:


This conundrum drives me crazy!

Update 2:

The only times he sings "ain't" are in 1995... This would mean that he has the lyrics "fresh" in mind. However, when sung later on it is always "seems". We all know Jon forgets lyrics. So he has probably done his homework/rehearsed These Days before putting it in the setlist. And when doing so.... HE WOULD HAVE TO RELY ON THE OFFICIAL LYRICS!

haha nice observation :-)

Could be as you say, though this "ain't - but" version is rather too eloquent (as a concept) not to be included in the official lyric.

One would thinks so, but when you listen carefully, and comparing it to most live versions, there is no way he is singing "seems" in the studio version!

My guess would be that they had been fooling around with different combinations and Jon just sang it however the lyrics came to his mind on most nights.
He also sang "ain't" later on - like in Hessisch-Lichtenau 2006:



Another thing that he alters during the song is:

"these days are fast, nothing lasts..."

Sometimes it's:
"these days are fast, love don't last..."

I am hearing "seems".

Anyway, why is the official lyrics wrong?

It just happens sometimes. Sometimes the lyrics get changed after the lyrics are sent off for the booklet but something gets tweaked. Say it Isn't So's lyrics in some places are it's original opening line. I seem to remember I Want You's lyrics being printed as

I tried to drown myself in pity
But the whiskey kept calling your name

In 2006 there are a few recordings where he sang "ain't" and he definitely does in the videos above. It's not a thing limited to 1995. I'm sure there were other later appearances of it as well.

The official lyrics have been, as Captain_jovi pointed out, wrong on numerous occasions. My bet would be that songs got altered even after the lyrics had gotten submitted. Take Bitter Wine as an example. People had wondered for years why the lyrics in the booklet differed from the final cut. When the electric demo of the song was posted we realized that those alternate lyrics still stemmed from there.
Or the most recent examples on This House Is Not For Sale.
There was an edit of the title track on radio stations where Jon sings
"baptized in a muddy river, not a wish in the well..."
yet the album version is
"The door is off the hinges, there's no wish in the well..."

Or during God Bless This Mess: the lyrics say "and good men stood at your side", while he's actually singing "still they're at your side".

Yes true, the Bitter Wine case is very charactersistic of false official lyrics.

Because those are the lyrics to the demo version if I remember correctly. I'm sure someone here will know, the attention to detail in this board is scary sometimes (I'm saying this affectionately [emoji1] )

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

Yes that was the case.
I think the printed lyrisc were something like
"Your love was my salvation
but now that river has run dry"

While the released version had
"Your love was my salvation
it could always get me high"