Oct. 5, 2025

TIK TOK'S VIRAL HITS -Jess Glynne - "Hold My Hand" (Travel2 Holidays song)

TIK TOK'S VIRAL HITS -Jess Glynne - "Hold My Hand" (Travel2 Holidays song)

Welcome back to Hitmaker Chronicles! I'm your host, Garrett Fisher. Today we're examining a unique phenomenon - a 2015 UK chart-topper that became 2025's undisputed Song of the Summer through an airline commercial and TikTok chaos. We'll trace how Jess Glynne's "Hold My Hand" went from Motown-influenced dance-pop triumph to the soundtrack of 80 billion vacation disasters, thanks to a British budget airline and Gen Z's genius for ironic juxtaposition. Sometimes the greatest songs have multiple lives, each one stranger than the last. Let's explore how a decade-old anthem became the sound of summer schadenfreude.

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Callaroga Shark Media, September twenty twenty five. I'm Garrett Fischer.

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And if you had told jess Glynn in March twenty fifteen,

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as her song hold My Hand sat atop the UK

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charts for three straight weeks that a decade later it

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would become globally famous because of a budget airline commercial

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and people getting chased by camels, she probably would have

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thought you were having a stroke. But here we are.

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According to TikTok's official data, hold My Hand is the

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undisputed global number one song of the summer twenty twenty five.

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Not a new release, not a fresh remix, but a

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ten year old track that's been playing is bording music

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on Jet two flights since late twenty fifteen, transformed into

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the ultimate soundtrack for vacation disasters, relationship fails, and the

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general chaos of trying to have a good time in

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an increasingly unhinged world. To understand this bizarre journey, we

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need to go back to twenty fourteen. Jessica Hannah Glynn,

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a North London Jewish girl whose grandfather changed the family

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name from Goldstein, was working in music management networking with

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producers when Clean bandit needed a vocalist for Rather Be.

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That song went to number one. Then Route ninety four

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needed someone for My Love, also number one. Suddenly, the

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girl who'd walked out of X Factor auditions at fifteen

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was the most in demand featured artist in British pop.

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For her solo debut, Glenn teamed up with Jin Jin

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Jack Patterson from Clean Bandit and Norwegian songwriter Na Roldsen.

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They created Hold My Hand, a perfect fifth harmony wrapped

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in glossy production, the kind of song that music theorists

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call satisfying and clubgoers call a banger. When it dropped

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in March twenty fifteen, it didn't just hit number one.

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It stayed there for three weeks, out selling its nearest

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competitor by forty thousand units in its first week alone.

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The song itself is deceptively simple, that darling hold My

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Hand hook that DJ Tina Edwards correctly identifies as a

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classic perfect fifth, a musical interval so harmonious it feels complete, inevitable.

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It's dance music that doesn't require dancing, pop that transcends

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its moment, which is probably why Jet two, a Leeds

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based budget airline trying to sell package Holidays to Britz

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licensed it for their commercials starting in late twenty fifteen.

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Enter Zoe Lister, a forty three year old voice actor

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from Cookham, England who's been doing Jet two voiceovers for

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seven years. In late twenty twenty two, she recorded what

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seemed like just another commercial script. Nothing beats a Jet

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two holiday and right now you can save fifty pounds

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off per person. Standard travel advertising copy forgetable except when

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you play it over, hold my hand and blast it

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at British consumers. For three straight years in commercials, in nightclubs,

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even as bording music on actual Jet two flights, something

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interesting happens. It becomes embedded in the national consciousness like

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a splinter you can't remove. The transformation started in November

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twenty twenty four, someone posted a TikTok video of a

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camel chasing them through the desert, set to the jet

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to audio. Three point eight million views. The internet's collective

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light bulb went on. This relentlessly cheerful advertisement was the

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perfect ironic counterpoint to vacation disasters. By summer twenty twenty five,

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it had exploded one point five million TikTok videos, eighty

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billion views. Google searches for Jet two holiday hitting all

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time highs Americans who don't even use the word holiday

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for vacations asking what the hell is a Jet two.

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The genius of the trend is its perfect marriage of

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corporate sincerity and user subversion. Jet two promises affordable paradise.

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TikTokers deliver whitewater rafting disasters, cruise ship evacuations, hotel rooms

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with windows the size of postcards. Jeff Goldbloom creates Jeff

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two Holidays, Mariah Carey posts it before boarding her jet.

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Even Jess Glynn herself performing hold My Hand at concerts,

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has to pause while audiences sing the jet Towo jingle

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back at her. Think about what this means for how

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music works now. A song can have a completely successful

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first life number one for three weeks, certified platinum, then

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get hijacked by a budget airline for a decade, marinating

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in the British subconscious before emerging as a global phenomenon

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through pure ironic displacement. The song hasn't changed, but its

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meaning has been completely recontextualized. Twice, Glenn told Capital FM

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that the resurgence was a massive surprise. Lister meeting Glenn

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for the first time. During the media Frenzy called her

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a super cool megapop star while describing herself as this cheeseball.

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But here's the thing. In twenty twenty five, the cheeseball

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voiceover is arguably more famous than the original song. That's

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not a judgment on quality, it's a statement about how

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culture moves now. When the White House tried to appropriate

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the meme for an immigration enforcement video in July, Glenn

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responded furiously. My music is about love, unity and spreading positivity,

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never about division or hate. But that's the thing about

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releasing art into the world. Once it's out there, you

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don't control what it means anymore. A love song becomes

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a travel jingle, becomes a meme about chaos, becomes a

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political flashpoint. Each iteration adds another layer of meaning, another

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context that can never be fully eraised. What makes Hold

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My Hand the song of Summer twenty twenty five isn't

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the melody, or the lyrics, or even Jess Glynn's powerful voice.

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It's that it's become a shared language for expressing the

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gap between expectation and reality, between what we're sold and

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what we get. Every vacation disaster video set to this

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song is really saying the same thing. We were promised paradise,

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we got chaos, and somehow that's hilarious. It's the most

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twenty twenty five thing imaginable, finding joy in the failure

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of joy. The irony is that musically, Hold my Hand

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Genuinely is a perfect summer song, that perfect fifth harmony,

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the uplifting production, Glenn's soaring vocals. It's engineered for euphoria,

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but maybe that's why it works so well for disaster content.

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The greater the distance between the soundtrack and the reality,

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the funnier it becomes. It's the musical equivalent of laughing

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to keep from crying more in a moment. As I

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record this in September twenty twenty five, Hold My Hand

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is experiencing its third distinct cultural moment, first as a

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UK chart topper, then as inescapable travel advertising, now as

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the ironic anthem of a generation that turns every disappointment

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into content. Each version builds on the last, creating something

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that's simultaneously a love song, a commercial, and a meme

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about the impossibility of happiness. That's not something you can plan,

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that's not something any algorithm could predict that's just the beautiful,

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chaotic way culture evolves. Now. Nothing beats a jet to holiday,

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the ads promise, and in a weird way, they're right.

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Nothing beats it because nothing can compete with our ability

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to transform corporate messaging into collective therapy, to turn a

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budget airlines jingle into a global inside joke about the

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human condition. Ten years from now, hold my Hand might

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mean something else entirely. For now, it means Summer twenty

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twenty five, a season when we all agreed that the

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funniest thing in the world was the gap between what

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we're promised and what we get. Sometimes the best songs

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are the ones that survive long enough to mean something

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their creators never imagined. Hold my Hand isn't just a

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hit anymore. It's a cultural artifact, a linguistic virus, a

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shared reference point for eighty billion moments of recognition. Yes,

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this is my vacation too, Yes this is my life too. Yes,

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nothing beats this beautiful disaster. We're all in together, darling,

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hold my hand. Indeed, we're gonna need it.