There’s something sticky about this song; it’s not just the tumbling piano threading its way through the entire song, as irresistible as it is, nor the “do do do do do do do/do do do do/do do do do”s, even though you find yourself wanting to sing along almost immediately. It’s the ramshackleness of the whole thing, the fact that it sounds casual and friendly, for want of a better way to put it. There’s something warm about this song, even as it bemoans the apathy of smalltown life (“All my friends are talking about leaving/about leaving/But all my friends are sitting in their graves”) and feeling trapped in the place where you’ve always lived (“Is it any wonder that we all leave home/When people say “I knew you when you were six years old”/You say ‘But I’ve changed/I’ve changed, I’ve changed/I’ve changed'”). Or maybe because of that. After all, who hasn’t felt those things at some point in their life, and hearing them being expressed back to you in a way that sounds… comforting, I guess, is something that’s hard to say no to.
Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan