So we have no songs with “24” in the title, so here’s a country song instead.
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[5.29]
Brad Shoup: His range is Buffettesque, no? There’s also a bit of Jimmy’s aromanticism, here: you can be happy, only because the odds demand someone be. The solo has that freshly-unpacked smell, and the backing vocals wouldn’t be out of place in a TV-commercial panorama: one more data point for your Evolution of Country chart.
[5]
Rebecca A. Gowns: This is a very cute inspirational song, sometimes bordering on existential (“somebody will be breathing that air”). It’s just slightly faster than it ought to be, so it’s got a “get out there and go for it!!” feel rather than the usual sleepy-positive “one day it will happen for you” vibe of inspirational country-pop songs. It’s corny, but it knows it, and it’s as sincere as it can be about it — like a greeting card from your dad.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Wills fires off a father/daughter anecdote in the first verse, with the chorus set up to deliver an aspirational message: You can do it, little ballerina girl! Follow your dreams! Homilies! Etc! Despite the cut-and-dried potential of this message, Wills’ approach comes across heartfelt rather than corny. When he moves away from this effective character sketch, his verses drown in confusing “real love” platitudes that turns the moral from “you can do it” to “you can be rescued!” If you’re going to preach, a little more focus wouldn’t be remiss.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Fortunately the male chorus acknowledges she’ll find “somebody” who’ll fill Daddy’s shoes sounds impressed instead of exploitative, and so few songs deal with father-daughter relations with the detachment afforded by the third person that I’m tempted to overrate it. But Wills is too okay a singer to make it work — which, actually, in other circumstances would make his Everyhat persona more attractive.
[6]
Anthony Easton: With the charm, and the generic inspirational message, and the lack of rock signs — in fact, in how slow it rides, and how it moves towards the same kind of chorus — it’s a textbook example of how to write a country song.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Between the subject, Bobby delivering the jokey-dad line “did you teach them something new?” with no humor whatsoever, the girl longing to grow up and the father insisting that her dancing shoes aren’t really too big (if that line reads literal…), the weirdly placid backing vocals, the jarring, unasked-for segue to love and heartbreak and the weird subtext of competition, I’m convinced this is the origin story to Black Swan. If you don’t make prima ballerina, somebody will….
[3]
Edward Okulicz: I love backing vocals that go whoa-oh. I especially am fond of choruses that change the lyrics between the first and second iteration while keeping the same rhyme scheme. Cornball is just peachy too. The chorus doesn’t convince with its attempts to uplift — is it that you can do it if you try because that somebody is anybody, or that it doesn’t matter because that somebody is somebody else or what? Obviously you could read the lyrics but inspiration is supposed to be a universal language. So too, I guess is music for middle-aged dads.
[6]