"Heart"(Spotify) is the fifteenth song (of 25) in my Atlas: Year Two series. The second song written for the theme "Intelligence": Body, Heart & Mind, inspired by the Enneagram Intelligence Centers. To learn more about this theme, and all of Atlas: Year Two's themes, please read here!
"Heart" opens with a secret - my 2½ year old daughter, Lily whispering a heartbeat sound. She's obsessed with Doc McStuffins and will climb up on my wife or I at random to give us a "check up" - she assembles her doctor tools (she calls her toy stethoscope a "heartbeat") then she'll get very quiet while she uses her stethoscope and whispers "bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum" and then tell us we're all better. It's one of my favorite things in the universe, so I decided to record it, and made it the opening sound of this song.
As I mentioned in the "Body" how-it-was-made post, for all 3 of these "Intelligence" songs, I wanted to make sure my little family was well represented in each, so along with Lily's opening "heartbeat", the song closes with recordings of my wife's heartbeat, our two little girls heartbeats and my own, all playing simultaneously as the song ends. This song is bookended by my family's heart.
At its heart, "Heart" is a love song. It's about being vulnerable and letting ourselves be in love and unafraid - a reckless abandon of sorts.
"i am short of breath
standing next to you.
i am out of my depth
at this altitude."
I liked the idea of using heights as a main lyrical theme in this song, because putting ourselves in positions of great heights is risky and dangerous - we fly in airplanes, we climb mountains, we stand inside skyscrapers - all requires a significant amount of risk and trust. I think that’s an accurate description of love. At our best, we go to truly great lengths and heights for the ones we love - simply because our hearts tell us to.
"i'll be the dangerous ledge,
you be the parachute."
In my marriage, we're always switching roles, constantly taking turns leading or following each other. I'm so grateful for that partnership, that when I'm losing my footing, she's pulling the parachute cord.
"go ahead and laugh,
even if it hurts,
go ahead and pull the pin.
what if we could risk
everything we have,
and just let our walls cave in?"
These words are a reminder to always let our guards down with each other, to be vulnerable enough to laugh in the face of risk and fear and danger. The idea of pulling the parachute cord in the lyric before, inspired the line "go ahead and pull the pin" - I really liked that this refers to something explosive like a grenade, to obliterate our walls and guards, but also something life-saving like a parachute cord. So these lyrics are to remind my wife and I to always remember to pull the cord, or to pull the pin as our life unfolds.
Though this song, along with "Body" and "Mind" were inspired by the Enneagram Intelligence Centers, these songs also represent the coming together of the physical (body), emotional (heart) and intellectual (mind) pieces of us. These are the key ingredients that make us, us! Through our body, heart and mind, we process the world around us.
(Brief Enneagram note: If you're unfamiliar with the Enneagram, (in the words of wikipedia) it is “a model of human personality which is principally understood and taught as a typology of NINE interconnected personality types." Each of these nine types fit into one of the three "Intelligence Centers": Body (the EIGHT, NINE and ONE types), Heart (the TWO, THREE and FOUR types) or Mind (the FIVE, SIX or SEVEN types)
In my friend, Chris Heuertz's upcoming book on the Enneagram, "The Sacred Enneagram", he describes the "Heart" types like this "Heart people are social types who feel their way through life by leaning into their emotional intelligence." And Fr. Richard Rohr explains : "They need affection and esteem. These so-called feeling people don’t have their own feelings; they have everybody else’s feelings! They experience themselves in reaction to the feelings or behaviors of others." I thought it made good sense for this song be a love song from the perspective of one side, pouring it's heart out to the other.
When the song was just about complete, I felt like it was soooo close, but missing something I couldn't quite put my finger on. So I invited my dear friend, Sharon Gerber to play cellos and she did so SO beautifully and I think her instrument serves as the soul to this "Heart", weaving in and out of each beat.
I used to primarily write songs on guitar, but in recent years, I just can't escape my love for writing on piano. But the acoustic guitar just felt like the foundation for the "Heart" - there's just something uniquely special about the acoustic guitar and love songs, so that was my rule: return to my old friend, the acoustic guitar, and begin. It was fun to reminisce with my old guitar!
As I mentioned above, there's a theme of heights throughout this song - so I tried real hard to make it sound like clouds. It was a fun challenge to try to figure out what floating sounds like... it helps that I kind of have an obsession with taking pictures of clouds and outside of airplane windows (i call it "airplaneography") So there's a TON of delicate and swaying melodies and sounds laced throughout. It was strange to write with such an abstract concept, but I so enjoyed it!
Thank you for reading and for listening! So very honored to share this song, which came directly from my heart.
Love, Ryan
Lyrics:
HEART
i am short of breath
standing next to you.
i am out of my depth
at this altitude.
like the world makes sense
from a window seat,
you are beautiful
like i've never seen.
go ahead and laugh,
even if it hurts,
go ahead and pull the pin.
what if we could risk
everything we have,
and just let our walls cave in?
i am short of breath
standing next to you.
i'll be the dangerous ledge
you be the parachute.
the blue and green below
is a masterpiece,
but you are beautiful
like i've never seen.
go ahead and laugh,
even if it hurts,
go ahead and pull the pin.
what if we could risk
everything we have,
and just let our walls cave in?
go ahead and laugh,
even if it hurts,
go ahead and pull the pin.
what if we could risk
everything we have,
and just let our walls cave in?
let our walls cave in.
let our walls cave in.