Tim: We’ve had a couple of rackety tracks recently; let’s calm down. Let’s calm down a lot.
Tom: Gosh, that was weird when she started singing on the track, but didn’t in the video.
Tim: We all know I’m really not much of one at all for a droopy ballad, but this I like. Partly because it’s not too droopy, I suppose – despite talking about wounds that never heal and tears that never dry, there’s that description of ‘us’ as two lost souls, which is almost poetic.
Tom: Yep, it’s rare for me to like something like this too: but it’s damn good. It reminds me of a lot of different songs, and I think you could argue that it’s a bit by-the-numbers — but as we’ve said many times before, there’s no shame in that if those numbers are good enough.
Tim: Let’s look at those lyrics: “we’re just two lost souls, sailing on a paper boat, don’t know where to go, trying to get home”. Written down, they’re somewhat neutral, and can go either way. In the first chorus, for example, with damp piano and lower strings, they’re sung as a bad thing – stuck in a relationship, both wanting out, going nowhere. Come that penultimate chorus, though, back from the middle eight with the strings rising up underneath, it’s turned round and is almost triumphant – we’re there for each other, there’s no-one else, and, as is sung elsewhere “don’t you leave me to drown”. Isn’t that wonderful?
Tom: It’s a full-on lighters-in-the-air moment, that. And let’s talk about that music: it manages to reach a crescendo, and then die back down to a quiet final chorus, despite not actually changing all that much. No big electric guitar coming in, no sudden percussion boom: it’s achieved with subtlety rather than the standard throw-everything-at-it cheap emotional shots.
Tim: It’s a beautiful track, and it’s suddenly struck me a shame that more songs aren’t like this. Although maybe if they were I wouldn’t be quite so struck by this one, so actually, I’ll just take it as it is. Very much, as it is.