#indiepop #indierock #alternative

This was an idea I jotted into my phone between tasks at home, starting with the chorus which popped into my head as ‘heart on your sleeve’. I went upstairs with the melody rolling around and whistled the verse into my phone. The bridge followed soon after, so I sang that in too and left it for a few hours.

Next was piecing it together. I found chords on the piano to support the melodies and make sure they worked. The chorus sounded okay, though the jump off was almost too much of a reach — but if you’re not doing something slightly different, what’s the point?

On the train to Tim’s house I wrote the verse lyrics. The idea was that the subject had removed their heart and placed it in a glass dome attached to their arm, so it could be hooked up to someone else and help pump their blood. Presumably because they’d lost their own heart along the way. I tried not to dwell on the logistics and focused on the visual of sharing a heart.

We recorded the song, with Tim adding embellishments. I wanted a clean sound: a dancing bass in the verse and a driving, pumping bass in the chorus. A musical mirror of the heart working hard to pump blood through both bodies. We settled on bass and synth.

When Luke arrived he said what we were all probably thinking: Heart on Your Sleeve wasn’t a great line and we should change it. Tim suggested hard on yourself, and it worked so we went with it. There are still remnants of the original idea in the verse, and I like that people might interpret the words differently from how they were conceived.

What’s great about writing as a group is that each person makes the idea stronger, and when you run out of steam there’s another brain to grab the baton. It can be harder to “kill your darlings,” but this time I was happy to jettison the words for something more prosaic and less like a slogan on a tea towel.

I’m disconnected from my heartbeat Blood it thunders right through my veins You wonder if you’ll welcome strangers How odd to live now outside your skin Are you sitting comfortably? Let’s pretend it’s all a dream

You reconnected to my heartbeat My thoughts are running into your brain Relied on the kindness of strangers How odd that I would see you again Are you sitting comfortably? Let’s pretend it’s all a dream

HARD on yourself Don’t you be so hard on yourself for me.

Let’s timeshare this important organ Conjoined and living wholly as one Now how we feel shows on the outside Exposed for everyone to see Are you sitting comfortably? Let’s hope we’re living in a dream

HARD on yourself Don’t you be so hard on yourself for me.

Watching wordlessly As our once young heart Breaks beneath the glass Now there’s no way out I see the final beats Flutter timelessly To forget memory Then escape to be free

HARD on yourself Don’t you be so hard on yourself for me.