Tom A Smith wrote a dark emotional masterpiece

Single Review: I Don't Want You To Have To Remember Me For Longer Than You Ever Knew Me - Tom A Smith

I usually write the song title in the headline but wow, where do you fit that? I Don’t Want You To Have To Remember Me For Longer Than You Ever Knew Me. A 16-word title, when you count “don’t” as one word. That's from the songwriter of Wolves, Dragonfly, Toronto, Boltcutters and Weirdo.

Naturally, your first reaction would be that it’s funny it has such a long title. But when you take the time to think about it, you realize that phrase is very powerful and, in fact, quite dark. That’s when it doesn’t seem funny anymore. I Don’t Want You To Have To Remember Me For Longer Than You Ever Knew Me, is a very serious song, which reflects the way Tom A Smith combines his deeply emotional nature, with his phenomenal artistic creativity. He’s one of those artists who go through a hard time behind the scenes and then use that influence as a driving force to produce such incredible art, which provides entertainment to people. He finds artistic inspiration and creativity in his intense emotions and creates music in a way that nobody else would. It's a way of expressing himself as an artist and as a person. There are songs by other songwriters, which could have been written by anyone. This is not the case with Tom, especially when it comes to this particular song. It couldn’t possibly be written by anyone else.

Tom A Smith has not denied that a lot of his lyrics come from struggles. He’s embracing who he is and he’s sharing everything with the world, in his unique creative way.

The first verse sets the scene with a reference to a conversation on a Friday night, expressing his worries and agony for the future. The way he builds up on that, showcases his creativity as a songwriter, his vocal ability, as well as his wide range of musical skills.

Also, from the beginning of the song, it sounds like drinking got him started, which is consistent with his previous single.

Here's a video of Tom A Smith playing the song at Signature Brew Blackhorse Road in London on 24/8/24.

He wanted to have the addition of a female voice in the song. In live shows, bassist Katie Anderson joins in with the vocals, but for the recording of the track, Tom collaborated with the band called Swim School.

What makes this song so special, apart from the deep meaning? Well, where do you start? The beautiful melody? The narrative in the lyrics? The vocals that gel in perfect harmony? The structure of the story? The epic guitar solo? The way the song enables Tom to showcase his vocal ability? The way it enables him to demonstrate he’s also an incredible guitarist on top of everything else? It’s a song that has a lot to offer. And yes, you might find it challenging at first to learn the title, but once you have mastered it, you already know a big part of the lyrics. And at the end of the day, it’s a title that tells a whole story on its own. It's not very common to get a big part of the story, from the title alone.

Here is a video of Tom A Smith playing I Don't Want You To Have To Remember Me For Longer Than You Ever Knew Me, at Colours Hoxton, during his Headline Tour in May:

In the past, I said Dragonfly was his best song. Then I said Man Overboard was his best song. Now I may have to change it again, because out of a very long list of incredible songs, this is in my opinion the best song he has shared with the world so far. It's definitely a close call between this one and Man Overboard, but at least for now, I'm going with this one as the best. If he has an even better song to give us, I’d like to hear it. Hopefully it doesn’t come with an even longer title.

I don’t do ratings, but if I did, it would have hit the absolute maximum. At least.

It’s not easy at all for someone who has a whole catalogue of bangers, to come up with a new best ever song. But this time, Tom A Smith has done it spectacularly. To describe this song, I'm using a word that I haven’t used in any other review so far. But I honestly think this is the one song that justifies it.

I Don’t Want You To Have To Remember Me For Longer Than You Ever Knew Me, is a masterpiece.