Tim: Presenting a rather lovely song that is completely and utterly ruined by the video. Title translates to ‘Guardian Angel’.
Tim: First verse: mm, yeah, it’s okay. First chorus: oh, this is absolutely beautiful and wonderful and heartwarming and everything.
Tom: I actually broke out into a smile at that first chorus. And I know it’s because it’s schlager, it’s perfectly valid to call it uninspired and by-the-numbers, but– I still smiled. For a moment. And then I realised what was going on in the video, and that it’s actually about a father dying in a car crash, it’s basically a “don’t text and drive” PSA, and ‘Guardian Angel’ in the title is not intended as a metaphor.
Tim: Yeah, quite the change of beat when you realise that, isn’t it?
Tom: It is odd, though. You could swap the lyrics of this out with a sappy love song and it would work perfectly. I wonder how often that’s true in this genre, and in others? Because that first chorus could be a proper hands-in-the-air moment.
Tim: Second verse: not much interesting happening, jump to another tab. Second chorus: OOH, it’s gone quiet, we’re getting one hell of a key change here. Except, no. We have a car crash instead, and…well, I actually meant that about it happening literally in the video, but it also works perfectly well to describe the song.
Tom: I know where you’re going, Tim, and I just think that it would be difficult to put a euphoric key change in a song about death.
Tim: True, AND YET, that sudden pause shows the potential for what could be. And sure, it’d be a key change that’s a good couple of decades out of fashion, and way off beat with the lyrics, but I don’t care, I want it, you’ve shown me it, and at each one of the drum builds that come throughout the rest of the song, I want that key change. YOU’VE STOLEN MY KEY CHANGE, DAMMIT.
I said ‘ruined by the video’, though: the studio version doesn’t have that pause, and as such doesn’t bring out anywhere near as much frustration. So maybe the video wouldn’t, if it did’t have that exact drama in that exact place. Silly people.