A heavy hitter on the Old Jukebox, but these are different times…
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[6.25]
Edward Okulicz: Marit Larsen’s girly, swooning voice is not so much an acquired taste as something you think is either expressive and wistful, or cloyingly twee. I’m in the former camp, but I like her best when she has a bit of steel or determination; this seems to happen when she’s leaving or at least chiding her lover, rather than pining for him as she does here. Her lyrics are as on-point as ever, and “Coming Home” is still a strong, well-arranged song, sung well and fondly, with its walls of cheesy guitar a particular delight. I can’t hold it against her that she’s chosen her most commercially-successful side as a single rather than my favourite side.
[8]
Hazel Robinson: Here’s a thing: I don’t really get Marit Larsen. I mean, this is perfectly pleasant, as are all her songs that I’ve heard, with a country lilt, but if it was a dude bleating this fairly pappy paeon to trying to get them to take you up on the hint then there’s a suspicion that you’d end up with Snow Patrol.
[6]
Brad Shoup: This is actually my first exposure to Larsen solo, as far as I recall. She’s got a high Appalachian warble, and works in Leigh Nash’s register, both of which are tremendous pluses. But while the band chops toward ecstasy, there’s not much of a space for the song to express what she may not. In other words, an instrumental break that doesn’t just soar along the changes. She clutches the chorus marvelously, but I hope for more amazement in my predestination pop.
[6]
Alfred Soto: If her voice wasn’t so high and afflicted with the cutes, the song would transcend its roots as the possible theme for a WB teen drama. I awarded an extra number for the slide solo.
[6]
Iain Mew: The little gap before each chorus is brilliant — it’s like Marit’s having three goes round at the song, all with their own little ending. Each time over it ends on her feelings and restarts on a question (“are you thinking what I keep thinking?”). It’s like she momentarily thinks whoever she’s speaking to is convinced, but still harbours doubts so decides that she needs to start again with a stronger case. Throughout, she gets more and more confident and more determined that what she’s feeling is so amazing that she can’t be the only one. Awesome “Torn” style guitar cry in the middle, too.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: If “are you thinking what I’ve been thinking” is supposed to be doubtful, the song doesn’t know, composed of vocal flutters dusted with snow-flurry piano lines and false stops inserted solely for the music to restart and sigh. I’m nowhere near the place where this can sweep me up swooning, but others must be.
[8]
Anthony Easton: I really fucking hate her voice. I can’t quite figure out why — it’s the Betty Boop cuteness for cuteness sake I guess — but that doesn’t explain the level of my hatred… maybe how she talks for the first verse in ways that seem less interior and more high stage, but that’s not quite it, and perhaps that the song that does not hold any thoughts — for a song that is about “are you thinking about what I have been thinking,” it is thoughtless, and for a song about refuge, about “coming home,” it seems profoundly isolating. It’s catchy enough — but fails spectacularly at its stated purpose(s).
[2]
Jonathan Bradley: Larsen’s most appealing asset here, as always, is her coy, girlish phrasing — though even that is a doubled-edged sword. “I wonder if you know…” she hedges in the opening line, sounding more cute (or “cute”) than curious. It’s hard to complain though, when she completes the thought with a disarming and open-hearted admission: “…you ruin me for anyone else?” Happily, the tone stays wonderstruck for the most part, helped along by a buoyant folk-pop arrangement. The guitars are more ambitious than she is, however, and it’s to the tune’s detriment; as they soar, she wafts. It’s a song that wants to swell, when all Larsen can do is shyly study her sneakers.
[6]