A prayer-shaped pop song about holding on through the dark in the simple, stubborn belief that brighter days are coming
"Better Days" is one of those rare dance tracks that doesn't actually want you to dance through the pain — it wants you to sit with it for a moment first, and then believe the pain will end. The song belongs to a strain of late-2010s electronic music that married festival-ready production with deeply confessional vocals, creating songs you could play at a party or alone in your room and have them feel completely different both times. Underneath the polished synth production and the catchy melody is something simpler and more vulnerable: a person at the end of their patience asking the universe for a break.
The narrator isn't pretending to be strong. He isn't pretending he has it figured out. He's tired — tired of feeling judged, tired of carrying his loneliness, tired of waiting for someone to actually love him for who he is. The song's strength comes from how openly it admits all of that. It doesn't dress up the struggle. It doesn't reach for clever metaphors. It just describes what it feels like to be exhausted by your own life and to need, more than anything, to believe that the exhaustion is temporary.
What gives the song its power is the chorus — the moment when all the doubt gets pushed aside and replaced by a stubborn act of faith. Hold on, there will be better days. That phrase isn't presented as a guarantee. It's presented as a promise the narrator is making to himself out loud, hoping that hearing it enough times will make it true. There's something almost spiritual about it. Faydee, the song's lead vocalist, sings the chorus with the kind of emotion that makes you understand he's not really singing it to anyone else. He's singing it to the version of himself that wants to give up. The "you" in "hold on" is a mirror.
The song also captures something specific about being young and in pain in the modern world. The narrator mentions feeling judged — by whom, the song doesn't say, but anyone who has ever lived under the weight of social media, family expectations, or community pressure understands instantly. The desire isn't just for less suffering. It's for a small space where someone might love him without first running him through a checklist. That's a deeply contemporary kind of loneliness, and "Better Days" gives it a melody that millions of listeners — especially across the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean, where Faydee has a particularly devoted audience — instantly recognised as their own.
The musical arrangement is clever in its restraint. Arman Cekin builds the song around a delicate, almost gentle electronic groove rather than the kind of aggressive drop typical of mainstream EDM. He lets Faydee's voice — warm, slightly grainy, full of Middle Eastern vocal inflections — carry most of the emotional weight. By the time the chorus arrives, the production has built into something genuinely uplifting, but the song never loses sight of its quiet beginning. It always remembers that the joy in the chorus is the kind you have to fight for.
What it means: Don't let go yet — don't give up — because better days are coming, even if you can't see them yet.
Why it matters: This is the song's heart and the line everyone remembers. The phrase "hold on" is so simple it almost disappears, but it's doing one of the most important jobs language can do: telling someone, you don't have to fix anything right now, you just have to stay alive long enough to see what's coming. That's a gift many people need at some point in their lives.
What it means: I just want someone to care about me as I actually am — not the version of me other people want me to be.
Why it matters: It's one of the most universal longings in human life, and the song states it without dressing it up. The repetition of "for me" turns the line into a small declaration of identity. The narrator isn't asking to be changed or improved. He's asking to be seen and accepted exactly as he is.
What it means: I've reached the limit of how much criticism I can handle from other people — I cannot take it anymore.
Why it matters: The line captures the specific exhaustion of living under constant evaluation. In the social media era, this kind of fatigue has become almost universal — the feeling that every move you make is being watched, scored, and discussed by people who don't actually know you. The song gives that feeling a name.
What it means: God, I need your help — I need you to show me the way forward, because I can't find it on my own.
Why it matters: This is the song's spiritual moment. The narrator isn't ashamed to ask for divine help. He isn't pretending he can handle his life by himself. The line opens up a deeper layer of the song — a recognition that some struggles are too heavy to carry alone, and that asking for help is a kind of strength.
What it means: The good days are coming — keep holding on until they arrive.
Why it matters: When this line returns at the end of the song, it sounds different from the first time. It's no longer just hope. It's something closer to certainty — the conviction that comes from having survived the song's darkest moments and emerged with the same belief intact.
Arman Cekin is a Dutch electronic music producer who emerged in the mid-2010s and quickly built a reputation for blending mainstream EDM production with global pop sensibilities. He's best known for his 2017 hit "California Dreaming," featuring Snoop Dogg and Paul Rey, which became a platinum-certified track and put him on the international map. His work tends to sit at the crossroads of dance music and pop — polished enough for festival main stages, melodic enough for radio, and emotionally accessible enough to find audiences far outside the typical EDM listener.
"Better Days" was released in November 2019, pairing Cekin's production with the vocals of Faydee and KARRA. Faydee — born Fady Fatrouni in Sydney, Australia — is a Lebanese-Australian singer and producer who has built one of the most distinctive crossover careers in modern pop. He sings in English but with melodic phrasing influenced by Middle Eastern musical traditions, and he has become especially beloved across the Middle East, Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. His 2013 single "Can't Let Go" and his 2014 collaboration "Habibi (I Need Your Love)" with Shaggy, Mohombi, and Costi made him one of the defining voices of that global crossover sound. His vocal warmth gives "Better Days" much of its emotional depth.
The song became especially popular in countries where Faydee already had a strong following — including Romania, Turkey, and across the Balkans — and gradually built a global audience through Spotify playlists and TikTok use. It's the kind of song that doesn't necessarily reach the top of the Billboard charts in the United States but accumulates millions of streams quietly over time, becoming a personal anthem for listeners who discover it during their own difficult moments. For many fans, "Better Days" is one of those songs you don't choose — it finds you when you need it.
| Word / Phrase | Meaning | Example Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| to hold on | To not give up — to keep going through a difficult time | "Just hold on a little longer — the worst part is almost over." |
| better days | Good times that are coming in the future, especially after a period of suffering | "She kept telling herself there were better days ahead, even when she couldn't quite see them." |
| to be judged | To be evaluated or criticised by others, often unfairly | "He was tired of being judged for things people didn't even understand." |
Arman Cekin is a Dutch electronic music producer and DJ who broke into the dance music scene in late 2014 and has since built a reputation for blending EDM production with global pop influences. His best-known work includes "California Dreaming" with Snoop Dogg and "Better Days" with Faydee and KARRA. Faydee, the lead vocalist on "Better Days," is a Lebanese-Australian singer-songwriter best known for his 2013 hit "Can't Let Go" and the international smash "Habibi (I Need Your Love)" — one of the most distinctive voices in the modern global pop crossover scene.
"Better Days" is one of those quietly important songs that uses simple, universal English ("hold on," "better days") to express something almost everyone needs to hear at some point in their life. For English learners, it's a wonderful study in how the most common phrases can carry the most powerful meanings when delivered with sincerity. Listen to the way Faydee's voice carries the chorus — warm, weary, hopeful all at once. That balance is the song's whole emotional engine, and it's the kind of feeling that translates across every language in the world.