Tom: Been spendin’ most our lives, liv… no?
Tim: Oh, really really not. Elba’s new to us, but we’ve met Rod before – you’ve probably done your best to forget it, though. It’s an improvement on that, by quite some way, though not quite as good as Simple Plan’s song of the same name.
Tim: So, a couple separated and dreaming of where they met. And (by the way, I’m about to do that occasional thing whether I ruthlessly and pointlessly overanalyse the lyrics)…
Tom: …oh boy. Go for it.
Tim: I don’t know whether to be annoyed that they’ve given up reading one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies three quarters of the way through, or disturbed by the fact that she’s singing a song like this whilst simultaneously planning to [spoiler alert] fake her own death. I mean, they’re making a pact to meet up again and everything, and she’s going to pull that on him? That’s just cruel, it really is.
Tom: Right. Romeo and Juliet isn’t a good romantic reference, folks.
Tim: On the other hand, music’s fine.
Tom: It’s really not.
Tim: Well…
Tom: This is such an anaemic mix: it’s like it’s been massively overcompressed, and run through a filter to remove all the bass. I listened to an official version and, no, it’s deliberately mixed like this.
Tim: Okay that much I’ll grant you.
Tom: This is plodding. The first two lines of the chorus barely move from one note.
Tim: Hmm…also a fair point.
Tom: This would have been a bit dull and clichéd twenty years ago, and as it is… no, I just don’t get it as “fine”. It’s not even “meh”. It’s poor. Even the middle eight doesn’t save it, which is saying something.
Tim: Fine, I get it as being largely unimaginative, and basically the sort you’d find two-thirds of the way through a budget compilation dance CD, the ones that can’t afford the likes of Guetta or Tiësto. But I’d dance around to it, and wouldn’t object if I was drunk at a beach party at half one. You’re that taken against it?
Tom: This would get knocked out in the first round of Melodifestivalen, and it’d deserve to be.