"You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast" by The Spin Doctors

Since it’s getting cold outside, I thought for this month, I’d choose a song by a band that features a member who is fairly well-known for wearing a warm hat. Not Mike Nesmith and The Monkees (though I have a two-part post about them planned, I just need to get around to finishing it). No, I’m referring to Chris Barron and The Spin Doctors, with their song “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast.”

The whole month/hat/song connection was a bit of a stretch, I know. I just wanted to feature this song, because I’ve been listening to it a lot lately and I really like it.

Now, “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” is probably not the song that The Spin Doctors are best known for. Actually, it definitely isn’t. They had two big hits back in the 1990s, those being “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.” If I’m being completely honest, I don’t really like either of them. “Two Princes” is okay, but I got tired of it very quickly. I don’t know why, but the guitar riff gets old fast, which is unfortunate because it's present throughout basically the entire song. I’m also not big on the “dabuh dabuh dabuh” parts and the lyrics, in general, aren’t engaging to me. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” bugs me for similar reasons. The guitar riff feels like what I would imagine line dancing songs sound like and the “little miss little miss little miss can’t be wrong” line has that “Two Princes” “dabuh dabuh” energy to it.

To be clear, I don’t think either of these songs is bad, they're just not for me. With that being said, I don’t think that “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” is really that different, stylistically at least. All three sound very much like songs by The Spin Doctors. I guess the lack of any “little miss” or “dabuh dabuh” equivalent helps. I also think the guitar riff is catchier in this song and it isn’t as omnipresent as in the other two, especially “Two Princes.” The lyrics are interesting too. They consist of Barron cautioning his friend, warning them that they are falling for someone too quickly. It's is a simple enough concept, but The Spin Doctors added some, well, spin (in the sense that they made it complex, not that they’re selectively framing narratives or anything). The second verse, in particular, illustrates this well:

“Broken glass turns back to flint and sand,

I only cease to love as love demands,

As you know it takes a while to clap those fragments from your idle hands

Couple months could dry a sea of tears,

leave only salt beneath our dried up piers,

We won't believe we cared, I swear, in a couple years.”

I also like the line that asserts that “If time heals all wounds, don't you know that time also deals them.” It takes an old cliché and turns it into something new, which is cool to see.

With that said, unless my issues with “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” apply to you as well, I think both are fine songs. “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” is the one that fewer people have probably heard of, yet I think it's the strongest of the three and it’s definitely worth a listen.