Heather Nova, born Heather Allison Frith, (Bermuda; July 6, 1967) is a sing… Read Full Bio ↴Heather Nova, born Heather Allison Frith, (Bermuda; July 6, 1967) is a singer-songwriter and poet.

Heather Nova is the Bermudian Songwriter who grew up on a boat in the Caribbean and went on to sell over 2 million albums in her 15 year career to date. She has released seven albums and has opened for artists like Van Morrison and Neil Young as well as performed with artists like Sarah McLachlan. She has also had hit records with co-writes featuring artists like ATB (Renegade), and Eskobar (Someone New).Her brother is the Reggae singer Mishka.

By the end of the 1980s, after leaving RISD, Heather moved briefly to New York City (where she unsuccessfully tried to interest some major labels in a demo including Columbia , who rejected her, only to sign her five years later ), before moving to London, England. She has British citizenship due to her Bermudan origin. In 1990, she released her first recording, an EP called 'Heather Frith' — she had not yet changed her name by then. The name change came a year or so later after several gigs in the Netherlands, where, after finding out that the Dutch have trouble pronouncing "Frith," she chose a name that would be easily pronounceable in every European language, "Nova," her Canadian mother's maiden name.

The new name debuted in 1993 with her second EP 'Spirit in You' and her first full album, 'Glow Stars'. The success of the album led her to record and release her first live album, 'Blow', the same year, which she supported by a tour of Europe. A year later in 1994 she released what many consider to be her finest work to date, the emotional yet jagged album 'Oyster', for which she toured for almost two years. Another live album, 'Live from the Milky Way', was released in 1995, and after its release she toured for nearly three years straight, twice joining Sarah McLachlan and others on the North American Lilith Fair, which is a music festival with only female performers. Heather is also a frequent performer at European music festivals such as Roskilde.

In 1998, the long-awaited follow up to 'Oyster' was released. After the release of 'Siren', Heather took a break while various television show and film soundtracks licensed some of her songs and her record company (Sony Records/The WORK Group) released various singles from the album, which received only moderate play on America's MTV2, Europe's MTV and Canada's MuchMusic and on mainstream radio, although she was popular on college radio. Also during this time, she recorded a version of the often covered Billie Holiday song, 'Gloomy Sunday', for the German WWII drama Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod. In 2000, she released yet another live album, called 'Wonderlust'.

Over the years, Heather has written and recorded over a hundred songs, so that her albums are selected from work that has often already been performed live, rather than being conceived during rushed songwriting sessions. Half the songs on 'Siren' had been written during the 'Oyster' sessions and were frequently played live prior to being committed to a studio session, and most of the songs for 2001's 'South' were written between 1999 and 2000 while she was on hiatus from touring. With the release of 'South', she returned to the international spotlight with an appearance on the soundtrack of the John Cusack movie "Serendipity", a couple of music videos, and a collaboration with Swedish band Eskobar, for a song called "Someone New", also released as a video, which proved so popular that it was played primarily on America's MTV, not just MTV2 (which is normally reserved for less-popular songs). 'Storm', Heather's fifth studio album, was released in late 2003 on Big Cat Records, as was 'Redbird', released in 2005.

In 2002, she self-published 'the sorrowjoy', a 72-page book of her poetry and drawings. An album of the same name was released in March 2006, which featured Nova reading the poems from her book set to ambient music. The album has only been available for purchase at concerts beginning with the Intimate Evening tour, from the fan-run websites, HeatherNova.Net and HeatherNova.De, and from the official website, www.heathernova.com.

The album Storm was released in 2003. It was a more refined album, using Mercury Rev as Heather's backing band. The album was Top 5 in Germany and Top 10 across Europe. It was an album of dark ballads, marking a step away from the polished sound of South. It was also Heather's first release on her own record label, Saltwater Records. Despite being pregnant, she toured hard with a new line up and band, before returning home to Bermuda. (A live DVD was made of these concerts (live at the Union Chapel)

I'm Alive
Heather Nova Lyrics

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Your hands were covered in paint
The pillow smothered my cry
You were half charmer half snake
I lived in dream time

But I'm alive
I survived you
And the bitter taste

The years I wasted
All the hate is gone
Cause I'm alive

Some nights I'd sleep in the car
Just to escape you
You drove devotion too far
No one could save you

But I'm alive
I survived you
And the bitter taste
The years I wasted
All the hate is gone
Cause I'm alive

I still have visions of you
I still have nights to get through
And when the trust isn't true
I have these visions of you
I have these visions of you

And I'm alive
I survived you
And the bitter taste
The years I wasted
All the hate is gone
Cause I'm alive
I'm alive

I'm alive
Ride on and fade away
I'm alive
There's nothing more to say
I'm alive
Ride on and fade away
I'm alive
There's nothing more to say
I'm alive
Ride on and fade away
And the bitter taste

The years I wasted
All the hate is gone

Overall Meaning

Heather Nova's song "I'm Alive" is a testament of survival from a toxic relationship. Through her lyrics, Nova tells a story of a haunting experience with an abusive partner. The opening lines of the song, "Your hands were covered in paint, the pillow smothered my cry, you were half charmer half snake, I lived in dreamtime," reveals the emotional and physical abuse inflicted by the partner. The reference to dreamtime depicts an idealistic world that the singer had been living in until reality hit her.

The chorus of the song is triumphant, as Nova sings, "But I'm alive, I survived you, and the bitter taste, the years I wasted, all the hate is gone 'cause I'm alive." Here, she acknowledges the self-reflection and growth that ensued after the abusive relationship. The singer still battles with the trauma, "I still have visions of you, I still have nights to get through, and when the trust isn't true, I have these visions of you," but ultimately concludes, "I'm alive, ride on and fade away, there's nothing more to say."

Line by Line Meaning

Your hands were covered in paint
Your hands were covered in paint

The pillow smothered my cry
I cried silently into my pillow

You were half charmer half snake
You presented yourself as charming but also had a deceitful side

I lived in dream time
I was naive and living in an idealized version of reality

But I'm alive
I have survived despite the hardships I faced

I survived you
I have overcome the negative impact you had on my life

And the bitter taste
The pain and hurt caused by our past has finally faded

The years I wasted
The time I spent with you that I now regret

All the hate is gone
The negative emotions I had towards you have dissipated

Cause I'm alive
Despite everything, I am still living and have moved on

Some nights I'd sleep in the car
I resorted to extreme measures to get away from you