Young Heart by Birdy: an album hitting close to home

 Birdy is by no means an obscure artist, but she’s not someone I’ve ever seen discussed by the public. According to this lovely article I found, despite her prodigious talent and musical influence, she prefers to pursue a more private image than most mainstream artists. And that makes me love her even more. 

    I’ve enjoyed Birdy’s music many times over the last few years, by myself or with friends. This British singer came to fame by winning a singing contest, Open Mic UK, at age twelve and then releasing a platinum single - a cover of “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver - at age fifteen. She has five albums so far: a self-titled album of covers, Fire Within, Beautiful Lies, Young Heart, and Portraits. She also has various covers, songs on the soundtracks of The Fault In Our Stars, The Hunger Games, Brave, and Netflix’s Persuasion, and collaborations with various other artists, too many to list for now.  What I most enjoy about her is her elegant, full voice, which paired with her classic beauty and dark-themed music videos makes her seem like a protagonist from an old-fashioned British novel. She’s a very fit companion for dreamy, bookwormish teenage girls. And what I recently realized is how her album Young Heart is a particularly good companion for any romantic, anxious, determined, introverted, artistic young lover shortly to face the adventure and ordeal of entering adulthood. Like me. 

Young Heart, released in 2021, has been my favorite album of hers ever since I discovered her. Compared to her albums both before and after, it’s gentle and authentic, very melancholy in overall tone, flavored by soft piano and guitar. It’s 16 tracks, and despite the cohesiveness of tone every one has something unique to offer. 

A few days ago when listening to this album, I was already in a special mood. It was rainy and cloudy that day, despite being July, and this injected me with a certain emotion I’ve experienced annually for years and which I simply call “the fall feeling,” although it usually occurs in late summer. There's no way to explain this emotion except to describe its symptoms - a clear head, excitement for the future, nostalgia for the past, and an element of romance to what I'm doing, which is usually something pure and wholesome in itself. All of these combine into a kind of compressed passion that takes into account all my dreams for the future and the good things from the past and makes me feel like a character from a movie about to step into the next stage of the story. I could try to describe this emotion in a hundred different ways and still not quite hit the mark. It wouldn't be itself if I could describe it. But anyways, I think the reason why I associate this feeling with fall is because for me that's when life seems to begin. There's school, obviously, the main activity of my life thus far, which I do usually enjoy - but I like to point out that my life also literally began in fall, because my birthday is in October. And from there fall flows seamlessly into the holiday season, the rich, pulsing, heart and beginning and end of the year.

           I have even more reason to experience this concern with past and future now. This next school year is the last one before I head out into the world of college and try to make a life for myself. Over the last month, I've been planning college visits and trying to establish good habits. The future is most of what takes up my brain.

            So that's the context of my renewed appreciation for Young Heart. I was listening to it on this cloudy July day, heart filled with this "fall feeling" and head filled with thoughts about the future. And bits of it intertwined with my own thoughts in ways they hadn't before.

           To share the beauty of this album, I'm just going to briefly discuss each track and what stood out to me. I encourage you, though, to wait for a rainy day, settle down, close your eyes, and let her emotions unfold - or listen to it while baking, as I like to.

1. The Witching Hour - Intro. This little intro is 50 seconds long, and the best piano piece to be described as "rippling" I have ever heard. It's serene, mysterious, and very gently intense.

2. Voyager. Although it's one of my favorite songs on this album, for a long time I felt I didn't understand the singer's situation.

Clouds move like paint
Changing in the sky
If the wind is on my side
I might leave tonight
I hate to disappoint you, but I've always been this way
And I know you need me here, but I know that I won't stay

No, I won't wait for you, I'm already gone
Like moonlight leaves with the dawn
I won't wait for you, the night's too long
I'm a voyager, and I voyage on
I'm a voyager, and I voyage on

Why would she be so willing to leave the person she loves behind?? What could necessitate such a separation? What kind of excuse is "I'm a voyager?" 

Now that I'm going through the process of choosing colleges far away from home and realizing I don't know how that will affect my relationships, but knowing it's still necessary for my growth - now I'm beginning to understand. 

3. Loneliness This is the first song I ever discovered from Birdy. According to Genius, Birdy has described it as "a love song to loneliness." Of course, it's not a straightforward love song - her struggle with loneliness is evident. 

My mind has been so loud, with no way to break out

With nowhere to be still

It's time to cut these ties, and watch our shadows fly

Let the dark flood in

Your hold has kept my heart in chains

For so long I've waited for it to break

Something in the air's got me feeling you're here again
And I was missing the dark without you near again
Watching the clock hand fall asleep on us
Oh, I've been losing my mind in these sweet dreams of loneliness

4. The Otherside Endlessly adventurous - a promise of forever love and encouragement for someone who's going through a hard time. In this song, there is assurance of recovery even if the relationship fails - "I'll see you on the other side."

Autumn days, the doors you face
They're never gone, you never cry
But if your bridge ever falls, if it does
If it does, I'll catch you, babe
I will
Autumn fires that blaze and burn
The shadow days, the red, the brown
They let you fall, they let you down
Let you down, that's the way I am

We could be weightless
Like birds in the night
Wherever we go
Set thе world on fire
We could be thе darkness
Breaking across the sky
If I lose you on the borderline
I'll see you on the other side

5. Surrender I didn't like this song very much at first. It felt slow and overly sentimental and plunky. But when I sat back and let the lyrics sink in, I realized it was a perfect tribute to the desperate desire for rest and love, numbed as it is by the plodding, aching business of life. I'll put all the lyrics here for you to read.

Strange, this wilderness inside
The heart drifts from hot to cold
You think it can't make up its mind
And suddenly it's always known
Suddenly it's always known

And if I could reach the northern lights
Maybe then I'd understand it all
Sometimes I try so hard to fight
When all I want to do is fall
Into the night
Into your arms
Surrender
Ooh-ooh

Delays on the District Line

Looking at pictures on my phone

I said I didn't miss you, but I lied

Told myself I let you go

Told myself I let you go

This song also follows perfectly from the story that began in "Voyager" as the singer travels away on a train, still wishing for her love.

6. Nobody Knows Me Like You Do Here I can say with confidence that I really don't like this song! Because I don't like songs that make me sad and don't have enough fancy instrumental trappings to make up for it!! This song is like a magic potion, a delicious tea that fills your heart and mind unapologetically with grief, but with a flavor so lovely it feels wrong not to finish it. The song's vividness is in its specificity - it easily creates a shadowed, tragic picture in the mind's eye.

Last night was the third time I've watched you leave
And though it's been five months, was like no time had been
Fought my tears in the dark as you drove away from me
'Cause nobody knows me like you do

You arrived in the evening light outside on the green
And I swore I'd be fine 'til I realized that you still love me
To see you standing there, I just felt relieved
'Cause nobody knows me like you do

And dark are my days now that I face them on my own
So long are the nights now that I'm sleeping here alone
And after all of this time, it's still just as hard to see you go
'Cause nobody knows me
Nobody knows me like you do

...

And I know that I decided we had different lives to lead
Not sure what it was I thought I'd found once I was free
But without you beside me, all I can see
Is that nobody knows me like you do

7. River Song Here the existential anguish from Surrender breaks through in a different fashion as Birdy personifies a river and asks for its wisdom. Its lack of humanity adds new weight to her question, "Do you understand how strange it is to be alive?" That's the kind of question we might feel foolish asking another human, and yet that is also the condition of each of us: trying to figure out why we are here and asking these questions at all. 

Time
Another season turns the page
Living in a kind of dark age
Could you light the way?
Life
Does the feeling ever die?
Can you understand how strange it is
To be alive?

Seen centuries come and go, is the future like the past?
Do we shine a temporary glow, or are we built to last?
Do you ever feel at times like it's all too fast?

8. Second Hand News This song adds a new brightness and sharpness to the album. It's another song grounded in the story of this breaking relationship, and highlighting the singer's desire to just get back to her love. She's desperate for him to understand who she truly is. 

You can take the things they say
As the bitter truth
Don't throw it all away
On second hand news

'Cause if I just let go
If my heart could choose
I would burn these bridges I've built
And find my way back to you
No, don't throw it all away
On second hand news

And as always the most heart-wrenching lyrics are those that put us in concrete reality: 

Crying silent tears in the next-door room
'Cause everybody's here but you
So I wrote you out this message
But I stopped myself from sending it off

The kind of thing I would do.

9. Deepest Lonely Another song about kinship with loneliness - with a stormier feel. This reminds me of the struggle to stay happy, productive, and focused on what I need to do - or of trying and failing to get to sleep. 

Oh, my deepest lonely
Why don't we waste another day
Starin' out my window in the mornin' rain?
Oh, my deepest lonely
They never listen anyway
In the witchin' hour, while the city sleeps, we're wide awake

10. Lighthouse A light, exciting, perfect love song, despite the sad lyrics. Its sweetness and lightness - shown through rollicking guitar and serenading strings - is refreshing after the previous chunk of heavy, sad songs. 

And when these stars rise and fall
And I can't find my way home
Will you be my lighthouse?
When I call out your name, show me the way
Will you be my lighthouse?
Will you shine out? Show me the way

11. Chopin Waltz in A Minor - Interlude ...She makes it sound so easy. 

But really, this was a good choice for an interlude. The Witching Hour was mystical - this feels domestic and refined. The album and Birdy's very persona veer between both. 

12. Evergreen. A central theme of this song is privacy, so I'll describe it tritely on surface level. A pastoral romantic fantasy - a tribute to infatuation - a flawlessly folksy love song. 

Nobody knows, my love
How long we've been this way
And ever if it rains, my love
Oh, there'll be hurricanes
And rivers will come rushing through the gates
But know that we'll land somewhere
Know that we'll have somewhere
'Til it all evaporates

There's a world out there
That would keep us apart
Let's stay here where
We're safe in the dark

13. Little Blue Another song about the consequences of losing love: desperately holding on to the sadness, or "little blue" as she calls it, because the memories are still so dear. I can't decide if this song feels endless or far too short. 

Little Blue finds me again

Creeps over my heart

Like a shadow on the hills

Little blue, you have me again

Breathless in the dark

Like trodden daffodils

Little Blue reminds me of the love I had that's gone

Little Blue, in you is where those memories live on

Don't leave too soon

Please, keep me close to you

Little Blue

14. Celestial Dancers This - this is a song I've listened to dozens of times, possibly my favorite from the album. In fact, this song most perfectly matches the "fall feeling" I described earlier. You'll have to listen to yourself to see - the piano, intricate ornamentations, wide-open vocals, harmonies, steady, bright, drums. And another reason I like this song is its subject. According to Genius, Birdy said, "This song is quite a spiritual song for me. When I’m writing—and I’ve felt this since I was little—I do feel a connection to something. This is about asking that force, or whatever it is, questions and hoping for answers." The singer covers the idea of one's calling and then looks up at the heavens for answers even as she is also lifted up into orbit, into a dance among the stars. I interpret this as how we catch glimpses of God when we create, because we are both imitating Him and also playing the part he gave us in the intricate dance of the world.

Some run wild
Trying to find a calling
Some give up too soon
For a fear of falling
Others never try
And don't know what they're missing
In the end
We arrive at the beginning

Here we are
Just floating with the moon and stars
Just waiting for something, a little spark
I don't know what it is, but when it comes
Mmm, I'll know it when it comes

Lost my head
In the heat of the summer
The sun burned red
In the heavens above us
Turned to the sky
Looking for answers
And I saw no reply
Only celestial dancers

15. New Moon I mentioned earlier how I've been trying to "establish good habits." This is a recurring theme of my life - constantly trying to fix myself and make myself more focused and productive and secure. The struggle is more vehement now that soon, my time for childlike play will be up and I'll have to start "adulting." This song perfectly encapsulates the (perhaps foolish) feeling of hope and determination to get over these habits. On this last listen, it pierced my heart deeper than ever before. 

Lately, I've been sliding back into my old ways
Giving all my precious time to rainy days
All the doors that were closed, they won't be anymore

'Cause tonight there's a new moon
Tonight there's a new moon
It'll fall into place
Tonight there's a new moon
Tonight there's a new moon
And it's all gonna change

16. Young Heart Finally the album winds to a close in this six-minute track. This song has the same things to say as Voyager, but it says them even more strongly, with hard-hitting mellow beginning and a chilling prechorus. The bridge takes on a gospel feel as the singer reflects on the crux of the matter: she's practically debilitated without her love, but knows she still has to leave. Nevertheless she resolves that her love for him will not falter. 

I have to say goodbye for now
It doesn't mean that I don't love you anymore
I'm still a young heart
There's so much I don't know
And I'm changing

And it's been on my mind some time
I found a way to never let it show
But it was too hard
I'm just a young heart
It's time that I let go

...

Told myself I was fine, I could keep holding on
Woah-ooh
Oh, I've tried, but there's nowhere to hide anymore
I can't stay where we are
I want to stay where we are

Goodbye, my love, no crying
Let's not leave each other like this
'Cause even though our hearts are breaking
And through everything that's changing
I'll keep on loving you, ooh-ooh
Loving you
Oh, I'll keep on loving you, ooh-ooh
Loving you
Oh, I'll keep on loving you