“Broken Hearts” - a song about expectations
One person’s blindside is another’s “I saw it coming from a mile away”
Story Pairing
We used to have two barns at our house when I lived in Rome, OH. One was an old barn made out of two train boxcars, the other was a new one that my dad and his friends built.
We called the old one the “Old Barn”, and the new one the “New Barn”. It’s a complex pair of rural code names, to this day it hasn’t been cracked.
While the New Barn had plenty going for it (an outlet, and a water pump), this story is about the Old Barn.
The Old Barn was full of what a child would view as junk, but an adult would know better. The entire barn smelled like old paper, wet wood, and dusty straw. My dad would store bales of the latter in there for certain excavating jobs (yards, septics, etc), and it was a mountain of a playground as a kid. What seemed like hundreds of bales, stacked to the ceiling, just waiting to be rearranged into caves and castles. Since I was the biggest kid, I did most of the moving, while my brother and sister helped in the architectural layout. We spent hours making cubbies and steps, reinforcing with sheets of old wood, and tucking our outdoor treasures into our new hiding places. Winter was the time when these masterpieces really came to be. We’d have a few cold months and plenty of time to get our dwellings just how we wanted them. A few bales would get ripped apart to make little piles that we could lay on, our winter coats blocking the occasional spiky end from ending our fun. The Old Barn was our kingdom, rarely visited by the big folk, and with enough nooks that our mischievous nature went on for months without discovery.
Spring would come, and with the breaking of the ice, also came the need for our building materials to find a paying home on job sites. My dad would come with a truck, and grumbling at the misunderstood state of his once neatly stacked piles, would take our bales away in batches. Our castle would quickly become a one room shack. A one room shack is no good at holding a child’s attention. When your kingdom is no more, it’s time to journey to new realms.
Inside the boxcars, the adventure was a tad more treacherous. The floor was soft or rotten wood, and you had to be extra careful where you stepped. Also it was exceptionally dark inside of those chambers, and you could hear constant squeaks from disturbed bats (did I mention at night hundreds of bats would come out of this barn?). If you braved it to the corners of these boxcars, hidden treasure could be found. Treasure that was never intended for the grubby hands of ignorant children. I remember a stool that had legs ending in metal claws holding a glass ball, those legs broken off from the stool made for an ideal wizards scepter. The edges of imagined spells became that much sharper wielding one of these legs…Years later I found out it was an heirloom, and the final spell the broken legs cast was parental anger, and punishment. A residual effect of that last powerful spell was the solidified realization of how having nice things isn’t a reality with an army of curious children. The list of other wonders that were destroyed in the name of imagination is long, and I won’t go into it here for fear of stirring up the ire of my mother dragon :)
Anyway, this song makes me think of the Old Barn for whatever reason. It didn’t start happening until after I was playing it for a few months… but now you know what goes on in my head while I sing this tune. I am thinking of epic adventures in a lost realm.
The Old Barn was torn down when I was in middle school. It became too structurally compromised. RIP.
Song Structure
Another G shape song, but this one revolves around a hammer-on and then a weird slide up to a C(ish) chord.
My guitar’s always seem to be a little out of intonation, so when I play live sometimes I just go to a C shape in first position.
Progression:
Verse - G/C
Chorus - A7/D7/G/C
Voice Memos
Another missing lyric page…
Dec 2019
Lyrics
Beyond being broken you got me where you wanted with that water in your hands
These cracking lips haven't had a drop to drink in week
Stories you gave me to wrap tight in memory are fading
How will I know my place is well beneath your feet
Don't try to save me, cus your conscious finally finds it's name
Pave my way with broken hearts tonight
Take this angel and clip it's dirty wings
Time says that there's no reason to fly from here
They say it won't hurt and you won't remember a thing
That fine wine they bottle and send out in the name of Jesus
Pairs well with the ransom they tucked behind their teeth
I beg to brush off the heavy dust before I get moving
You took my house, took my bed, and left me dirt to sleep
Don't try to save me, cus your conscious finally finds it's name
Pave my way with broken hearts tonight
Take this angel and clip it's dirty wings
Time says that there's no reason to fly from here
They say it won't hurt and you won't remember a thing