Heart Song

Heart Song

Heart Song

Track 6 of Heart Songs

LINKS

ABOUT THIS SONG

release date: March 16, 2021
length: 4 min 58 sec
music and lyrics: Chris Tong
vocals: Chris Tong
musical arrangement: Chris Tong
ISRC: QZDA82164841
UPC: 196053815590
instruments: piano, synthesizer, electric guitar, cello, bass guitar, drums

I wrote Heart Song when I was 23. It is a song about second chances, healing the heart, and living in the present.

LYRICS

HEART SONG

Like yours, her eyes were wise and warm.
And we were kids, without a care.
Best friends, we walked around the lake,
and talked of things child-free and rare.
But I could not accept me. . .
I felt the need to lie.
I told her I could disappear.
And she believed me.

Like hers, your eyes are filled with trust.
And I give you all that's mine to give.
No fear holds back my honesty,
desiring most to fully live.
And now I do accept me.
You see it in my eyes.
The child in me has re-appeared —
he sings this for you.

A simple song flows round and round.
It circles back to where I found it
tucks me in like your embrace,
in heart song.

And all I know is now and now is
you and I, alive, and life is
heart to heart,
with hand in hand,
in heart song.

Like autumn kites upon the breeze,
like children running in the sand,
we play our lives out to our hearts. . .
I then let go —
and feel your hand.

Our hands may never meet again.
Still I give you everything that's me.
That's all there is if I am true —
I give you all,
and leave me free.

Another dawn,
a sunset,
at night, another star.
Another song for us to sing,
and shout who we are.

A simple song flows round and round.
It circles back to where I found it
tucks me in like your embrace,
in heart song.

And all I know is now and now is
you and I, alive, and life is
heart to heart,
with hand in hand,
in heart song.

A simple man flows round and round.
He circles back to where he found you
tuck me in with your embrace,
in heart song.

And all I know is now and now is
you and I, alive, and life is
heart to heart,
with hand in hand,
in heart song.
In heart song.
In heart song.

Previous Track:
All I Need Is Your Love

Next Track:
Island

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Circle Songs: I've always been interested in what I call "circle songs": songs that, in one way or another, circle back on themselves. One way that can happen is when the music is written in such a way that the end of the chorus flows back into the beginning (without pause), and the chorus is musically interesting enough that you can listen to it cycling back on itself, over and over again. One of my favorite examples is the chorus in Andy Gibb's Everlasting Love, written by his brother, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. (They only repeat it twice at the end of the song, starting at 2:53; but note how there is no pause at 3:29, and the end seamlessly flows into the beginning.)

The chorus of "Heart Song" is designed to flow back into itself in this manner. More than that, the words of the chorus reflect that: "a simple song flows round and round, it circles back to where I found it." Lastly, as part of that circling, the words of one line overlap with the words of the next:
It circles back to where I found it.
It tucks me in like your embrace, in heart song.
"It" appears at the end of one line, and the beginning of the next. But I only sing "it" once, so the listener can experience the feeling of the lines overlapping with each other.

The words also refer to a particular "circle" metaphor — a circling back to the starting place:
"A simple song flows round and round; it circles back to where I found it." and
"A simple man flows round and round; he circles back to where he found you."
This circle formed by returning to the starting place has intrigued many writers and poets, whether it is Homer writing of Odysseus, after his long voyage returning home; or James Joyce, ending his epic Finnegan's Wake with half a sentence, the completion of which is the half sentence at the beginning of the book (so the entire epic story becomes circular); or — my favorite example — T. S. Eliot, in the last section ("Little Gidding") of Four Quartets, writing:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

In other words, the circling is not a mere "going round in circles"; we are deepening our understanding with each cycle: a spiral then, if depth of understanding is introduced as a third dimension, in addition to the two dimensions of the circle.

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