Break Yr Heart is the second single from new Vancouver indie-RnB act, des hume. Developed in songwriter Thom Kolb’s Vancouver bedroom, the track and pending album, bub (due later this year), are a toast to the people we can’t help but hold onto, even when we know we can’t be healthy around them.
The video, directed by Kasey Lum (Felix Cartal, Jon Bryant), was filmed over two intensive days and cost $250 in cigarettes. Featuring friends, lovers, ex-lovers and strangers, it comprises a series of disconnected portraits of quiet and solitude.
Kolb provided the following statement:
“Vices come in many forms. I’ve always thought the concept of a vice was strange – something that you lean on for comfort that can often be harmful in its own right. Last year, in the thick of a serious bout of depression and grief following the end of a tumultuous relationship, I started smoking. Lots of people do this in the midst of a low point, but it seemed poignant that I would turn to something so unhealthy after I’d been through a mental and emotional ringer. It was like I’d traded in once vice for another, and while the irony wasn’t lost on me I indulged in this behavior for months.
Every cigarette was planned; a parcelled-out moment in the day when I could sit in stillness and reflect on what I was going through. I started noticing other smokers and I wondered if they too were compensating for some sort of loss. I saw them everywhere: older people in wheelchairs outside of care homes, chefs on a break, solo drunk revellers, young dads. All of them looked like they had a reason for what they were doing, braving the elements just to have moment to themselves. Everyone knows how harmful smoking is and yet here we all were, strangers in every way save for our poor life choice.”
lyrics
Give it up for the one that breaks your heart worse than you ever knew
cause no matter how I spend my days
theres no getting over you
can't blame no one but myself
I saw all that I was getting myself into
still I gotta hold onto something to make it worth
all that I put myself through
You showed me a life I could be living
then left me behind and I can't say I've forgiven you
I know things change
all I've got to show for it
is I know some words to break your heart
They say move past, move on, move along
as if they feel they can relate
little do they know, all I want
is to find some trace of you in somebody else's face
so stand with me, stand alone, I don't care baby
hold out, or hold on, just don't say that you
don't think about me to (I know that you do)
or at least I have to tell myself
You showed me a life I could be living
then left me behind and I can't say I've forgiven you
I know things change
all I've got to show for it
is I know some words to break your heart
credits
released February 15, 2019
Recorded at home by Thom Kolb.
Mastered by Andrew Yong Hoon Lee in Brooklyn, NY
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