Who Knew That Love Could Cut So Deep?

I’m not generally a fan of discussing the ‘meaning’ behind songs.

The songwriters that I most admire wouldn’t dream of it.

Bob Dylan, famously poked and prodded throughout the mid-to-late sixties in particular, evaded such questions by refusing to describe himself as anything more than a ‘song and dance man’.

I’m also often reminded of Billy Collins’ poem ‘An Introduction to Poetry’ in which he captures the relationship between text and reader with typical invention:

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

The last thing I want is for Leonard Cohen, or Paul Simon, to come along and explain to me precisely what they ‘meant’ when they wrote ‘Hallelujah’, or ‘Graceland’, or anything else for that matter.

Like The Bible, songs like these have a mystical power that belongs to us all.

They’re the workings of a divine elsewhere, channeled briefly through flesh, blood and genius - strange mirrors for us to see reflections of ourselves in, and discover a little more about what we are.

When Leonard Cohen sings ‘Maybe there’s a god above / But all I ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you’ I know what the line means to me. I know the memories it evokes. I know the faces I see and the shadows they cast.

I don’t need it to be dragged out of my personal world into his by some biographical backstory that means nothing to me anyway.

However, in the spirit of sheer hypocrisy, I’d like to share a few things with you in regards the next single, ‘Cut So Deep’, landing on streaming platforms in three weeks, on Friday 21st July.

I’ve always suspected that I’m not especially good when it comes to feeling my feelings in real-time.

I tend to find myself numb in the face of emotional turbulence, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a quality that has always allowed me to keep a fairly level head, I suppose.

When it comes to love, however, where emotional turbulence is a fairly major part of the deal, my equanimity can often come across as a little cold.

This irritates me because, at my own glacial pace, I know I’m someone that thinks and feels deeply. It just takes me a while.

The tune is loosely inspired by some of these ideas and in particular, without being too particular, a fairly traumatic breakup I went through a while ago.

I suppose the title, mirrored by song’s recurring question ‘Who knew that love could cut so deep?’, is a reflection of the idea that losing love can sometimes be less like a devastating explosion and more like a slow, invisible haemorrhage.

The end of the relationship, in this instance, was so clouded by a strange mixture of guilt, relief and concern for the other person that it took a while for me to be able to face the underlying pain I felt at losing someone who had meant so much.

I think writing the song was important in helping me understand that. A little like I imagine a therapy session might go, were I ever brave enough to do one, once the dam burst I remember that song just pouring out of me in minutes.

It was ike it had been waiting, for a couple of years by this point, for the quiet afternoon it needed to come to life.

I’m very proud of it, as I am of all the songs on the new EP.

It gives me a special kick to know that the string parts were arranged by Colin Elliot, whose work can also be heard on the tunes of Richard Hawley, one of my favourite British songwriters.

I also love that, if you really crane your ears, you can hear the groaning of the studio piano on the intro, as it struggled with the heat in which we recorded last summer and its metal and wood began to move and come alive.

I hope you enjoy it.

As ever - please keep this exclusive preview to yourself. The video will be officially released for the rest of the world, alongside the song, on July 21st.

Keep dreaming,

Rob

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