One man. One beard. One guitar.
[Video]
[2.44]
Isabel Cole: Don’t need to spend your life chasing gold, but you don’t miss her enough to, like, come home, right?
[4]
Brad Shoup: Imagine still saying “better half” in 2020! And then having to add the perplexing qualifier “of me” to fill the meter. Ghastly diamond-commercial pop.
[2]
Alfred Soto: He places an awfully big burden on her shoulders.
[0]
Vikram Joseph: The only way to make this tolerable is by imagining Tom Walker playing this to his girlfriend, who sits patiently through this deeply ingratiating poundshop “Flying Without Wings” rehash and then immediately dumps him.
[1]
Edward Okulicz: This song is the worse half of Passenger (I know there’s only one member of them, but I don’t care) doing the worse half of Westlife.
[2]
Juana Giaimo: This is so boring. When are the over-dramatic acoustic male artists going to end? Just because you force your voice, it doesn’t mean you are being more genuine — actually, most times it means the opposite.
[4]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: I’ll give Walker credit for his ability to croak something fierce in the chorus. And really, his voice can waver between an impassioned half-yell and a forced tenderness with relative ease. But this song is the kind of trite that feels fake and doesn’t try to hide it; I can’t hate something that’s content with mediocrity.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: The decade of UK music has a seedy, sordid underbelly where Sheeran-core thrives and reigns. Yes yes, white dude with a guitar is not a unique development, I know. Nevertheless you can feel the wake of Sheeran throughout the decade in all kinds of avenues. Do you know how many white dudes were able to clog up grime YouTube channels with “freestyles” to their acoustic guitar because Ed had courted that audience first, thus securing his rise? Likewise it is both astonishing and practical that Tom Walker here is on Relentless, former home to the likes of Artful Dodger, Roll Deep and Nadia Rose. (Also, current day label-mates with Headie One!) This is the reality of the situation, Walker has made a fine single that nobody should give a shit about because he is the unimaginative — both personally and professionally — filler for people just hoping for their own personal Ed Sheeran money in 2020. Even the video, which features an assembly line of generic gingers being sifted through to push at an audience, is a blatant admission of “GOD IF ONLY WE COULD HOPE TO HAVE FIVE OR MORE OF THAT FROG-FACED BASTARD.” Walker’s lack of imagination is undermining the ambitions and the humors of the True Sheeran Vision or whatever, but he still is another man’s wake that critically has yet to be assessed.
[4]
Ian Mathers: This feels like the kind of thing that’s leaning on some dubious notion of “craft” or whatever, and yet…. technically speaking the songwriting isn’t very good, is it? Nothing clever or particularly satisfying or distinct abou the words, the melody is imminently forgettable, nothing really going on. And his voice is shit. So why are we here?
[1]