Tom Hanks makes an appearance in his son's new music video, and it almost worked in distracting me from how uninspired the song is.
Videos by Wide Open Country
Chet Hanks and Drew Arthur recently teamed up to form Something Out West, and released their first song "Leaving Hollywood" in February this year. Well, they're back with a new song, "You Better Run."
And I must say, they were daring in the writing room with this one for sure.
It feels like the lyrics were meticulously constructed by an AI that was fed prompts like "we want money," "my dad was in the famous movie Forrest Gump," and "bro country song about running away from a woman."
The music video has so many references to Forrest Gump that it's obnoxious. It's as though the song was written with the movie in mind as an excuse to flex his famous dad for attention. Something Out West did everything they could to make the song a success. Everything apart from writing genuine, authentic, and interesting lyrics, that is.
It pains me to hear what is essentially a list of synonyms for "run really quickly." Why are we running? Ah, because of "her." Got it. And how quickly? Oh, like all of those quick things. Gotcha.
Not Even Tom Hanks Can Make Up For Lame Lyricism
Tom Hanks appears in the music video on a bench (how inspired, I know) with his son. Throughout the latter half of the video, the famous actor sits in a grump over his son's expressionism. I suppose they were trying to go for 'grumpy old dad' here, for no apparent reason.
They embrace each other at the end, which is admittedly a sweet scene. But all the A-list celebrity does is make lost and disappointed faces at the camera. Another boring artistic decision.
If you're going to make a country song, make a country song. Don't just churn out uninspired lyrics that sound similar to other country hits. This is the difference between writing a song and making a product. And is everything that's wrong with the music industry right now.
Too many product peddlers are infringing the scene. And it looks like Something Out West is just another business venture.
