"Today" is a song recorded by the 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...

 artist Gary Allan

Gary Allan

Gary Allan Herzberg is an American country music artist, known professionally as Gary Allan.Signed to Decca Records in 1996, Allan made his debut on the United States country music scene with the release of his single "Her Man", the lead-off to his gold-certified debut album Used Heart for Sale,...

. It is the lead-off single to an eighth studio album, Get Off on the Pain

Get Off on the Pain

Upon its release, Get Off on the Pain received generally positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 84, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "universal...

, released on March 9, 2010. It debuted at #52 in July 2009.

Content

The song's narrator claims that he lost his lover and everything that he ever wanted "today" when he sees his former lover getting married to another man:

During the week of October 19, Allan talked about the single on Jeff Foxworthy

Jeff Foxworthy

Jeffrey Marshall "Jeff" Foxworthy is an American comedian, television and radio personality and author. He is a member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, a comedy troupe which also comprises Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and Ron White. Known for his "you might be a redneck" one-liners, Foxworthy...

's Foxworthy Countdown: "It’s one of those songs that you missed it with that girl, that’s the girl you always thought you should have (been) with and you let her slip through your fingers and now she is happy as hell and doesn’t think about you ever[…]And we’ve all got one of those girls in our past!"

Reception

Leeann Ward of Country Universe gave the song a C+ rating, and said in her review of the song: "With a moody piano to serve as the foundation for the swelling strings and over all dramatic angst, Allan sings of the pain of loosing his former lover to another man", but added, "it is severely weakened by a disappointingly generic, overblown production." The 9513 critic Juli Thanki gave the song a thumbs-up; while her review describes the production as "slick" and "boring", she also says, "Luckily Allan’s beautiful rasp rises above these shortcomings as he manages to simultaneously sound brokenhearted, regretful, and maybe just a little pissed off." Matt Bjorke of Roughstock also gave a favorable review, saying "it is nice to hear a smoldering ballad of regret from one of the best vocalists in modern country music", although he added that he did not consider the song's theme original.

Chart performance

"Today" debuted at number 52 on the U.S. Billboard 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...

 chart on July 4, 2009, and peaked at number 18 in February 2010. It also debuted at number 6 on the U.S Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart for the week for March 9, 2010. >

Chart (2009-2010)	Peak position
US 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... Bubbling Under Hot 100	6