Wooden Heart

This is a video I ran across a while back by vocalist Dan Smith of Listener. When I first saw it I was like "What?!" There's a guy walking along dragging household electronics through a field with a rope. He's pulling a tv and crutches and a vacuum cleaner out of a lake. He makes a pile and takes a sledgehammer and starts smashing it all up. Then it's dark and he's holding flares. Then he walks into the water until it's over his head and he disappears. I don't know how you arrive at that video to go with this song, but weirdly enough the video and the song both seem to make each other stronger. What comes across to me after repeated listenings/viewings/readings is that despite its manic intensity and apocalyptic imagery it's essentially a love song, or at least a plea for love and mutual understanding. I think it's kind of great.

We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of livin'
Since that first breath we'll need grace that we're never given
Well I've been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
It's not only when these eyes are closed
These lies are ropes and I tied them to my stomach
But they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
My dreams are sails that I point towards my true north
Stretched thin over my rib bones and pray that it gets better
But it won't, at least I don't believe it will
So I've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship
To sail these blood red seas and find your coast
Don't let these waves wash away your hopes
This war ship is sinking and I still believe in anchors
Pulling fistfuls of rotten wood from my heart, oh I still believe in saviours
'Cause we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
Washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
So come on and let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run upon this beach
Come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember

Well I'm the barely living son of a woman and a man who barely made it
But we're makin' it, taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
We all have the same holes in our hearts
Everything falls apart at the exact same time it all comes together perfectly for the next step
But my fear is this prison that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow and it's quiet and it's hidden
And my hopes are weapons that I'm still learnin' how to use right
But they're heavy and I'm awkward and I'm always runnin' out of fight
So I've carved a wooden heart
Put it in this sinking ship hopin' it'd help me float for just a few more weeks
But I am all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
Lost and found like you and me all scattered out on the seas
So come on let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run upon this beach
Come on and sew us together, we're just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember

My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, come on and rock me to sea
If we hold on tight we'll hold each other together
And not just be some fools rushin' to die in our sleep
While these machines will rust, I promise, but we'll still be electric
Shockin' each other back to life
Your hand in mine
My fingers and your veins connected
Our bones grown together in time
Our hands entwine and my fingers and your veins connect
And our spines grown stronger inside
'Cause I know that our church is all made out of shipwrecks
From every hull these rocks have claimed
But we pick ourselves up, try and grow better with this change
So come on and let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run upon this beach
Come on and sew us together, we're just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember