Tom: Grace Davies: 2017 X Factor runner-up, great voice. Advance warning: this is a lovely, slow, builder of a ballad, utterly ruined by one single clunker of a lyric.
Tom: Which is a shame, because everything else on this is brilliant. You could argue it’s a bit by-the-numbers: all the orchestral bits hit exactly when you’d expect them to, and then it’s back down and quiet for the final chorus.
Tim: As you’ve described, a perfect builder. And I’m guessing I know the line you mean – though I’ve got no problem with it. It’s a clunky metaphor, sure, and it falls down completely in the second verse when it sounds like Amsterdam is another girl rather than a city where he’s done all so many bad things, but the line itself I think is quite nice.
Tom: But her voice is just lovely, the production is excellent, even the rest of the lyrics are good. It’s just that one line: I cannot imagine how anyone thought “damn you Amsterdam” fits anywhere outside of a children’s rhyme or… maybe some novelty apres-ski party song?
Tim: It’s a METAPHOR, darn it, a METAPHOR.