When I first heard Hurt’s Wonderful Life, I thought it was a song that the radio station had dug up from the late 80s and were bombarding us with because it was featured in some sort of movie or TV show. Then after some research, it turned out that it was only the band’s second single and was only released to the stations in August, and was met by much success in Europe mostly and I am not surprised.
This past year, I’ve only heard one other band that was successful at integrating synths in their music, and that was Hot Chip on their album One Life Stand but the newcomers Hurts will give the other band a run for their money in the next few years if they continue to do what they did with this song.
Basically, the song is about a man who is about to jump off a bridge until he meets Suzie who re-instigates hope in the man’s heart and falls in love with him along the way. The chorus is basically the very simple but also highly important message that Suzie tells the man:
Don’t let go
Never Give up
It’s such a wonderful life
The execution of such a story-telling song is so perfect that you just can’t resist hitting repeat. Because it’s such a chilling topic, the synths are very much the same, with a very remarkable saxophone melody playing in the background. There’s also the echos around the chorus that are instantly attractive, and it really doesn’t hurt that lead singer Theo Hutchcraft has that kind of brooding voice that will take you in automatically. It’s such a shame though that we don’t know what happens to the man and Suzie at the end, but then again this is what keeps the listener’s attracted.
I expect this song to do well as it gets more exposure. Here’s the also too-amazing video: