Writing an album is a journey… There are highs and lows, good times and bad, happy and sad, blah, blah, blah…. Albums aren’t so special in that regard…. anything that takes so much of your personal time over many months, becomes a journey. Each song has meaning/s, and you try and reach a balance, whether light and shade, different key signatures, tempo, subject matter, 'Rock out’ tracks, and ballads, etc. or just general feel.
The one thing you have at the end is that you feel pretty good about all the songs… don’t you? Don’t you????
Maybe not so much, actually….!!!
“This Tender Heart” is the last track on the album. It sweeps in with strong brass and great riffs. It bounces along and really makes me feel good. Except that, (like “Delilah”, in the last few years), I think some of the pleasure has been taken away by osmosis as the lyric chips its way through and makes me realise it can have an interpretation that is not as innocent as I intended…
“If I ever catch you kissing someone else
This tender heart will bare it’s teeth and start to fight”
Eurgh!!! What the hell does that mean???
I’m pretty damn sure when I wrote it, I meant to say that I wanted you to love me and not leave me… I wanted to be your heart’s desire… I hope that’s what it means but there is undoubtedly a more sinister side to “This Tender Heart”….
“… if you leave me lying naked in the rain
This tender heart will be no shelter from the storm”
Is that a threat? It kind of sounds like one…
Look! This is not a “woke” man just trying to cover his tracks for writing a song that could be interpreted as displaying more than a little toxic masculinity… I genuinely never imagined this narrative. The song was written at least 8 years ago and never once resonated as ‘dodgy’ to me until it was recorded and, listening back, I started to feel.. “ooh.. hang on, I don’t recall meaning that”. I don’t know what a psychology graduate would make of this song but I know it’s stopped me in my tracks a couple of times since releasing the album, and made me ask myself if I still like it… As of now, the answer is yes. I come down on the side of the romantic:
“Call it miscommunication
But I don’t know what’s on your mind
But if you run away and leave me
You know you’ll leave a broken man behind”
I still have hope that I wrote this song as a tribute to love, a desire to stay in love and be loved… As time has gone now however, I have to admit that I now see other meanings. Less innocent and more toxic meanings.
Even the seeming innocuous line,
“When you hurt, I’ll make it better
If you’re cold I’ll keep you warm”
Has me questioning whether this is in fact just “Alpha male talk”. “Stick with me. babe.. I’ll sort it out. I’m a man”!!!
So, if anything, although I still enjoy “This Tender Heart” and am proud of having written it, I now wonder whether it will change the way I write. Maybe make me ask a little more of the lyric before I settle on the one that sounds best in that moment…
Maybe I need to do a bit more to check my heart is actually as tender as I’d like to think. I could be wrong (of course), but I have this nagging doubt in my mind when I listen to the track now and I need to get my head around it….
Crispin x
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