
<p><em>How I wrote and recorded my newest single, now available on <a href="https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jackjose/i-dont-know-my-heart-by-heart">streaming services near you</a>.</em></p>



<p>This article explains how I wrote the song I Don’t Know My Heart By Heart. Or, more accurately, it describes the conscious and explainable parts of how I wrote the song. So, mostly it’s about process. I don’t explain the rest because you can’t explain magic. Ultimately songwriting is a lot of process, and a dose of magic.</p>



<p>Some days I am consciously attempting to write. It could be a song, a poem, an article, or even something for a client or another songwriter. Like right now, as I write this, I have intentionally blocked off time and set up a space to write with a goal in mind &#8211; a rough draft of this very article. And on those days the writing proceeds at its own pace. Because life intervenes.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://thebestwordsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/heart-headphones-square-300ppi-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1517"/></figure>



<p>The writing experience is very much like walking a cat. Or at least the specific experience my wife and I have when we periodically take our inherited elderly black cat for a walk on a leash. Sometimes the process comes along quickly, as the article and I rush ahead, full of curiosity and interest, sussing out possibilities and following scents. Words tumble out quickly and the page is soon filled with observations and related ideas that will, with revision, look like it has a purpose and a direction. And much is accomplished.</p>



<p>But other times it just flops down on a warm spot on the pavement. Sure, I’m still talking about the cat, but again the analogy to writing is spot on. Sometimes the empty page just looms large and unsullied on the screen. An indolent cat in a comfortable square of sunlight. There is often an embarrassingly large amount of procrastination.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>“I let the music decide what the words are gonna be. But I have spent a lot of time and effort on the lyrics, because I’m not good at it.”</p>
<cite>&#8211; Ben Folds</cite></blockquote>



<p>I songwrite the same way. Some days it’s a series of things getting done, and other days it’s just “idling insignificantly”, as Courtney Barnett might put it. I pick up my guitar or sit at the piano or keyboard, and start noodling. I never know which day it is until I’m in it.</p>



<p>But what I’m doing in those intentional times, usually, is making the space for the magic.</p>



<p>You see, often the best lines come to you when you are out in the world. Or engrossed in something else. Or trying to sleep. And your promises that you will remember this idea later are lies. So you must capture them immediately somewhere &#8211; for me it is Google Keep or in my journal.</p>



<p>That is how the line “I don’t know my heart by heart” arrived. Unbidden. Like magic. It happened on October 9, 2022 &#8211; Google Keep reminds me. And I immediately tried to build a song around it.</p>



<p>And I immediately failed.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image alignnone size-medium wp-image-1516"><img src="https://thebestwordsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Image-7-31-23-at-4.10-PM-300x142.jpeg" alt="A screenshot of alternative lyrics to the song ";I Don't Know My Heart By Heart";" class="wp-image-1516"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">These alternative lyrics were clearly inferior.</figcaption></figure>



<p>I’ve even left out the cringiest of the lyrics, a verse rooted in nothing I’ve ever felt or experienced before. A verse of pure fiction. It’s awful, really.</p>



<p>The next month, in a move unrelated to this particular line, I challenged myself. Having long believed the legend that Bruce Springsteen wrote one song a day, I promised myself that I would write three songs a month. I wasn’t a working songwriter like Bruce, so I can’t hold myself to the same high standard. And also, I have a job. In this way I clearly can deduce that I consider myself roughly 10% the songwriter that Bruce is. This claim doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny, so let’s leave it here, in my head, where it belongs.</p>



<p>To hit my ambitious goal, I dug through my notes. Here I rediscovered and was surprised again by the line “I don’t know my heart by heart.” Even with the garbage around it, it stood out.</p>



<p>It’s a good line.</p>



<p>So now what?</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What does it mean</h2>



<p>Well, I had to dig in and determine what the line meant. What is it trying to say? If it is a truly memorable and meaningful line in a song, it is likely saying multiple things at once. The heart is metaphorically the seat of love, and &#8211; unironically &#8211; one of our centers of decision-making. So I set out to explore the paradoxes therein.</p>



<p>I reflected on the many mistakes I’ve made in romance and friendship &#8211; examples of not knowing my heart. In my case, at least romantically, these were experiences I had in adolescence and early adulthood. Long enough ago that I can reflect fully on their significance. And the first of these was a memory of a relationship that ended because of the weight of things around it, and not because of any particular action of either party involved.</p>



<p>Promises were made, and broken, on both sides. After all, that is why it is so hard to say “I love you,” even for the most jaded of non-romantics. Perhaps even moreso for jaded non-romantics, because saying “I love you” is not a temporary feeling. Instead it is a promise. And breaking a promise is heavy. Promises are, for many people, tantamount to religion. Their word is their bond, and don’t issue promises lightly. The depth of the significance of these words is why evoking God and the devil felt appropriate in the first line.</p>



<p>“I know I once promised / I’d do anything for you /<br>The devil’s in the details / when God is in the plans<br>I meant every word / that you heard<br>When I said ‘If dreams come true’”</p>



<p>And then I took on the ultimate betrayal, when we break up with someone we love. Quickly I realized the meaning of the song. The betrayal isn’t just of the other person, it is also of ourselves. When we say we love someone we DO mean it. We LOVE them. (At least in my situation I only said it if I meant it. This song is for people who mean it when they say it.)</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Circumstances change.</h2>



<p>People often grapple with that contradiction by saying that they love the person but are not “in love” with them. We all understand that feeling.</p>



<p>But the betrayal is real. Our heart got us into this mess. Our heart, which we carry in our most sacred place, the pulse of our life, which has been with us from the very start, has led us astray.</p>



<p>“Beating in my chest / what I know best<br>Is a heart I misunderstand / I misunderstand / I misunderstand.”</p>



<p>Ahh, the pre chorus as precís. Wouldn’t Mrs. Anderson be so proud?</p>



<p>About this time I’m thinking I’m writing a Gin Blossoms song. The longing, the self-loathing and misunderstanding, the rocking BPM.</p>



<p>And I start to consider relationships I have imagined and then ended without ever acting on. Crushes, chance encounters, things I’d have said if I was more clever or more forward.</p>



<p>I guess I’m plenty clever, I just don’t have “game.” That is, I am witty and can say things that fit the moment, make references to earlier experiences, and that point at the layers of irony in a specific situation. I am very comfortable making fun of myself too. I just don’t interact with others with an end goal in mind of creating a romantic relationship. I don’t have “game” in that sense. I am not playing, or angling for some sort of physical interaction. I’m happy being in the moment, laughing with a new acquaintance.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”<br>― Scott Adams</p>
</blockquote>



<p>But this personality, the one who was always trying to seduce someone (even using that language makes me laugh at my awkward self) was sort of intriguing to me. As I fell asleep at night, I’d imagine what I could have said if my objective was to “be in relationships” instead of “make people like me.” My falling asleep persona is some sort of suave lothario, and in this way I would while away the minutes before I slept at night, or just after I woke up in the morning, savoring a dream. Imagining myself into and out of relationships in shockingly quick fashion.</p>



<p>“Circles in my brain / familiar terrain<br>But I’m forever lost.<br>Futures dissolve like castles in the sand.”</p>



<p>Side note: even now, after having recorded it and released it, I debate whether this should be a metaphor or a simile. I’m as likely to sing it one way as the other. “Futures dissolve. Castles in the sand.” This debate fits the theme of the whole song, so I’ve chosen to embrace it.</p>



<p>And then, a nod to my modest approach to relationships and how they contrast with my imaginings of dozens of romances that never happened:</p>



<p>“If this is the high road / would you share my load?<br>Climbing on to get off<br>Drumming in my veins / the same refrain<br>A rhythm I misunderstand / I misunderstand / I misunderstand.”</p>



<p>Am I on the high road? The platonic friend who so many have confided their deepest thoughts and fears in, and who so many have confided that I feel “like a brother” to them? I enjoy that closeness. I have these sorts of relationships with many women, perhaps as a result of having been raised by my mother. From the time I was in high school I was comfortable being a confidant, and quick to nonjudgmentally accept the confessions and frustrations of those around me, with no expectation or suggestion of taking the relationship beyond friendship.</p>



<p>“If we’re killing time / It’s no crime<br>Cause time will kill us in the end<br>Even in my sleep / my heart beats<br>A coded message I misunderstand.”</p>



<p>I misunderstand. I misunderstand. So many times, so many relationships end with some echo of this observation.</p>



<p>And, always, there is the constant reminder that we are born to die. That each beat of our heart is simply ticking off an unknown total number of heartbeats until our last. So what if in the meantime we live? What if we enjoy our wits, and our bodies?</p>



<p>And the whole time, the heart beats …</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The music</h2>



<p>So on the day I sat down to write, with this promising lyric as my worthy partner, I picked up the guitar to make space for it. The lyric suggested this melody to me, in the way that lyrics often do.</p>



<p>I sang the line over a D chord but … it was wrong. I didn’t understand. It had all the right notes, except the one.</p>



<p>I reached out to one of my trusted co-writers, my son. I sang the line to him and asked him why it didn’t work. His grounding in music theory helped here. “That’s because you’re singing the notes of an F-minor chord. So, yeah, the D sounds wrong … because it is.”</p>



<p>After the false starts and a terrible rough draft, and one version in my audio notes of me just singing “I don’t know my heart by heart” over a series of chords, I sang the line over the F-minor and it all came together.</p>



<p>And then the song just sort of tumbled out, almost exactly in this final form. There followed a period of playing and replaying the song. Did I play it 50 times? Certainly. 100 times? Possibly. Each time with a variation or two, seeing what sounded right, working out the lyrics.</p>



<p>A few days later, I added the turnaround on the second chorus at the end, which was very satisfying to my ears. Instead of coming out of the chorus with a G / Em / D; I gave ‘em the old F-minor, A7, D, which helps send the audio cues that the song is ending. Very satisfying.</p>



<p>And then at some point I decided it was done. I then played it once or twice every time I sat down to play guitar, and then took it into the studio for the upcoming album.</p>



<p>In the studio, Ric Hordinski brought his production skill, and some phenomenal musicians, to breathe life into it. His layers of guitar are dreamy, and the understated guitar solo really fits the song. And Andrea Summer’s vocals add a depth and warmth that my voice does not naturally convey.</p>



<p>[Add musicians and links to their discographies]</p>



<p>I hope the lyrics and music speak to you.</p>

I Don’t Know My Heart By Heart
