Hearts So Wise

single
(not yet released on any album)

click to enlarge

There is a back story to this song. It's not included in or implied by the song's lyrics, and it is not necessary to know to enjoy the song. . . but knowing it can enrich listening to the song.

The song's story is sandwiched between the opening line:
Hey little girl, you had a bad night. . .
and a line near the end:
Hey little one, we had a good night.
The early night starts off bad for her. But the night is long! Between the opening and the close of the song, a healing process takes place, and, by the time the sun comes up, a real friendship has been forged.

Even though specific events ("a bad night") are the start of the conversation, the narrator (who is becoming her friend) helps her see the larger picture of her life: that she is living life in a way that's about excitement, stimulation, and staying "forever young" (a reference to our youth-worshipping culture, in contrast with traditional cultures organized around respect for elders and their wisdom). That approach to life is her real problem, and it is bound to fail, because all of us, without exception, age and die. He gets her to see how the focus on the stimulating life is really about avoiding the full depth of her feelings about life, aging, and death. The avoidance of feeling pain fully is also preventing her from feeling joy fully. He suggests that a wiser life is one in which those intense feelings are allowed and fully felt.

This entire night-long conversation takes place in one of her favorite haunts — going dancing on the Jersey shore — so she can be relaxed in a familiar place ("a place of hope") as she considers a different approach to life.

* * *

For the narrator, his friend's "smile" is the sign that she has gotten it: this different approach to life could be a happier one as well, and she's willing to give it a try. And so the lines about her smiling progress through the night's conversation: from "I don't see you smile." (when she's still just enmeshed in her despair) to "Will I see you smile?" (they're beginning to make some progress on this new view of life) to "Now I see you smile." (she's got it!).

* * *

As in so many of my songs, I like creating interesting rhyming structures. The one I had the most fun with was getting 4 out of the 5 verses to end with a line having a rhyming word and a similar structure:
Verse 1: Yes, your heart can mend now.
Verse 2: No, it's not the end now.
Verse 3: It's just gonna bend now.
Verse 5: Yes, you got a friend now.

* * *

The phrase, "forever young", plays a major part in my song. Forever Young was a song Bob Dylan wrote for his seven-year son in 1973. It is a very sweet song, in the form of a prayer. Who can blame a father for praying, "May you stay forever young"? But of course, it cannot be. When Rod Stewart crafted his own version of Dylan's song, he made major changes to the lyrics. This included using the phrase, "forever young", in a more nuanced way that doesn't deny aging and death: "And in my heart you will remain forever young." This is more like the aging person's own feeling of himself: the body ages, but he still feels "young", he still feels himself to be the same person throughout the decades — one's heart is ageless and timeless, and the feeling another can have for one (in their heart) can also be ageless and timeless.

When I wrote the song (in 1986), I only had a synthesizer available, so that is what I recorded:

Because the song is so jam-packed with music, it was such a delight to be able to draw on a much richer suite of instruments in creating this new arrangement.

Many songs have two recurring musical sections: verses (where the lyrics are different in each verse) and a repeating chorus. This song could probably best be described as having verses and two choruses.

The verses begin with the lines:
Verse 1: Hey little girl,
Verse 2: Hustled by "love"
Verse 3: Hey restless one
Verse 4: The sweet little girl
Verse 5: Hey little one

Chorus 1 repeats three times, beginning with the lines:
In one of your dreams
Deep in your heart
in one of your dreams

Chorus 2 ("Let's go dancing") also repeats three times.

I created each of these three musical sections — along with the ending — to have some unique, easily recognizable features:

• The verses are accompanied by a climbing piano line, followed by a falling bass line (that reminds me of the bass line in Ray Charles' Hit the Road, Jack).
  
  
  
  
• Chorus 1 has a catchy, repeating five-note electric guitar riff, and has hand clapping as a distinctive part of the percussion. It ends in a familar rock piano trope.
  
  
  
  
• Chorus 2 is dominated by a distinctive electric guitar line, and the tambourines joining in after a couple of measures. The interplay between the main singer and the secondary singer also makes this part distinct. Finally, there is also an unusual chord/key change at the end of the chorus (from A7 in the key of D to G7 transitioning to the key of C)
  
  
  
  
• The ending is instrumental, and is accompanied by that descending (Hit the Road, Jack) bass line. It recaps in music the night of growing friendship: it starts off slow, and a little awkward, but at a certain point, they really connect, and the friendship takes off.
  
  
  
  

The cover art was inspired by the recurring song line, "Let's go dancing on the Jersey shore tonight":

This is the place where the story is taking place. They are seen dancing as the sun rises, at the end of their long night together.