DAY 4 -
"When Hearts Approach the Great Divide"
Ok....we are four days in.
So I saved today's song for far into our journey for a good reason. This is probably the most personal and difficult song I have ever released. I couldn't hid behind a character or leave any ambiguity in the lyrics of this one. This song is the hardest kind of story to tell: a true one.
Not to say my other songs aren't true, but this song is directly auto-biographical. The images and events are things that actually happened to me, not simply inspired by things that happened to me. So this is as real as it gets for the songwriter. I feel like we've journeyed long enough to share this, it's not one I typically play live just because it's so hard to keep myself together emotionally and get through it.
VLOG -
What is this song about?
Live Performance of:
"when hearts approach the great divide"
BONUS: Interview on Ambition Radio:
Lyrics
A shattered glass in the sink
A broken chair on the floor
Mom and dad don’t seem like they’re
In love anymore
Silent dinners, screaming nights
We hid under the covers in our rooms
Wondering if it was something that we did
To make them sleep in solitude
Just hold on tight
Soon they’ll decide
You and me
Amongst the debris
As hearts approach the great divide
We’d stay at his apartment on the weekends
Above some poorly painted creaking stairs
I could tell this was a part of fatherhood
That wasn’t supposed to be there
Just hold on tight
Soon they’ll decide
You and me
Amongst the debris
As hearts approach the great divide
The trembling inside the chest
The preparation for descent
To have and to hold
For better or worse
It’s just an old verse
...just an old verse
Just hold on tight
Soon they’ll decide
You and me
Amongst the debris
As hearts approach the great divide
We’ll turn out just fine
It’ll all be better in time
When hearts approach the great divide
The Songwriter's Journal
When I was about 12 or so my parents got a divorce. For my brother and I it was very difficult but we both dealt with the effects very differently. I tend to internalize things and I don’t show any outward signs that I’m effected. I process things way deep down away from anyone and everyone, where no one can know but me. I don’t think is necessarily a good thing, but it’s just what I do.
This song was probably the most difficult one I’ve ever written. Not because of technical reasons but because it’s such an emotional topic to let other people into, it was hard to put things into a song and let other people into one of the most difficult parts of your life. To capture the last few months before they announced to us that they no longer would be together, the weekends traveling up to visit my dad in a cramped apartment in Annapolis. You know that there are certain burdens that your parents, out of love for you, won’t lay on your shoulders as children, but you can tell how much it hurts. This song was my best attempt at capturing that experience down to the most minute detail.
It’s been many years since and wounds have healed. We made it through. We’re going to live, but it took me a very long time to realize how much that it affected me. My hope is that someone who is contemplating divorce may listen to this song and in feeling the weight of this experience, decide to work through things. It has a similar theme to yesterday's song "Will of a Fisherman" in that way, but this song is more of a direct showing of the effect that a separation can have on children. Of course there are times when a person isn’t willing to change in order to make the marriage work, and you can’t make someone change. Also, no matter what the outcome, time will always heal.
Psalm 147:3
The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.