There too much heartbreak.

I love this song, Number 6 in the Top Ten of my most popular songs according to Spotify stats. It’s called Heartbreak and is on my ‘Shake It, Make it and Don’t Fake It’ album.

I wrote this for Ann. Music has often been a source of comfort even when it can’t practically help. Ann’s mum died, unexpectedly, it was a big shock, a massive loss.

I’d written about Kath before on the song Mother’s Crown, she was a Matriarch in the finest sense of the word. She wasn’t domineering, she was positively influential in her family and community. I didn’t know if this song would help, I just hoped it would and wrote it from my heart.

I recorded and played everything on it. I love the fat synth notes, the T-Rex jink on the off beats, the crappy sounds of the £30 acoustic guitar, the meandering runs on the £20 Cash Converters bass guitar, the handclaps and the quickly programmed drum loops. I even like my voice, double tracked with loose harmonies. My god, I even did some guitar soloing.

I’m notoriously bad at guitar solos. Maaaannyy moons ago, when 16 Tambourines were a 3 piece bunch of angry young mod punks, we had a song called ‘Something Special.. it had a guitar solo which consisted of me playing a very poor pastiche Chuck Berry riff. I did it with commitment like, all 3 notes.

We were playing one night at Rudis, a great basement bar in Liverpool, and as I ‘took’ the solo, I was amazed – I sounded like Chuck Berry! I should have duck walked. I made the mistake of looking to my left and saw our sometime keyboard player had plugged in an electric guitar and was wailing away in fine style. Thanks Brian…

On Heartbreak, I miked up the crappy acoustic and let my fingers do the talking and they spoke of hurt, loss, contusion and all manner of emotion. It’s not really happened since. My cheap Dell computer somehow harnessed enough power to hold it all together. I like to think it knew this was important.

Others have told me that the song means a lot to them and in turn, that means the world to me. Don’t forget to cry, don’t be scared to pray.

You can find Heartbreak on the streaming service of your choice, linked to below.

https://songwhip.com/steveroberts/heartbreak