Tim: New one from Train here.
Tom: Excellent! I look forward to seeing it used in dozens of advertisements throughout 2017.
Tim: You say that now…
Tom: Good heavens, this is the lowest-effort single Train have ever produced.
Tim: Yep.
Tom: And that’s saying something. They’ve taken a song from the 1930s, changed the lyrics to be so utterly generic that they were thoroughly parodied three years ago, and added verses that don’t even seem to have a melody.
Tim: Hmm, I wasn’t going to be that harsh on it – it was the melody in the chorus that caught my ear and make me think “ah…”
Tom: Well, yeah, but that’s because it’s ripped off. And before you go “well, that’s just an obscure track they’re taking”, it’s not.
Tim: It really isn’t – a simplified version was one of the first tunes I got taught when I was unsuccessfully put through piano lessons as kid, and I suspect that’s true for many other people as well. But as for the lyrics, they have at least added the slight twist that the reason he wants the song to be played is that it gets his woman turned on and wanting to do the dirty.
Tom: Here’s the thing: Heart and Soul is a great song. There’s a reason it’s survived so long. And it only really has that chorus: if they’d just added some decent verses, and produced it this well, this’d be a fantastic track. As it is? It just feels lazy.