Mark Heard released 13 studio albums in his lifetime (as Mark Heard & Ideola) also 1 album with Infinity Plus Three), and produced and performed with many other artists as well, such as Daniel Amos, Sam Phillips, Pierce Pettis, Phil Keaggy, Vigilantes of Love, Peter Buck of R.E.M., John Austin, The Choir, Randy Stonehill and Michael Been of The Call. Heard produced part of Olivia Newton John's The Rumour, which also included a cover of Heard's "Big and Strong".
On July 4, 1992, Heard suffered a heart attack on stage while performing with Pierce Pettis and Kate Miner, at the Cornerstone Festival, near Chicago, Illinois. Heard finished his set and went to the hospital immediately afterwards. Two weeks after being released from the hospital, Heard had a cardiac arrest and died in August of 1992. Sadly, this happened at a time when Heard's musical career never looked brighter. Not only had he just released three albums (Dry Bones Dance in 1990, Second Hand in 1991, and Satellite Sky in 1992) that many hailed as his best work to date, but he had also just been included on a sampler from Windham Hill's High Street label.
Heard's early work was often marked by strong, poetic lyrics; but musically he lingered in a generic folk/folk-rock style. But Heard continued to experiment musically; his most extreme was perhaps the elaborately-produced electronic rock on the album Tribal Opera, which he released under the name iDEoLA. With Dry Bones Dance, however, Heard's music blossomed into an intense folk-rock fusion, marked by driving rhythms, virtuosic instrumentals, passionate vocals, and interwoven elements borrowed from styles such as Appalachian folk, zydeco, bluegrass, and country (though Heard's music is none of those). Second Hand returned to a more acoustic guitar-based folk sound, but retained the energy and creativity discovered through Dry Bones Dance. His final official album, Satellite Sky, was again more like the latter.
Mark Heard's lyrics are deeply grounded in a Christian view of the world, though explicitly so only half the time. He was often critical and had an eye for emotional pain and spiritual desolation, yet he remarkably avoided cynicism. When his lyrics turned to expressing hope or joy, they were powerful. As a poetic lyricist, Heard cultivated verbal sound (e.g. with internal rhyme), strong images and elaborate personae, while avoiding the cheap punch-line metaphors popular in much contemporary folk music. Some of his images, most notably "bones," can be found repeated and richly varied in their meaning across years of songwriting.
In 1994, many artists came together to record a tribute album called Strong Hand of Love. Artists lending their talents to the project included Victoria Williams, Chagall Guevara, Buddy Miller, Julie Miller, Daniel Amos, The Choir, Rich Mullins, Bruce Cockburn, and the Vigilantes of Love. The project was later reissued as a 2 CD set with additional tracks and retitled Orphans of God.
Age of the Broken Heart
Mark Heard Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With tears on her face
He says he's leaving her but he feels no disgrace
He can't pity her while he pities himself
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
We take it so hard
We make things worse
And we aggravate the pain
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
So what is the crime
In crying out to God
In the black of the night
I must let down my guard
Every day as she drives downtown
She's distant and cold
The rear-view mirror reveals her soul
She forces a smile
But it comes out a frown
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
We take it so hard
We drive ourselves insane
We make things worse
And we aggravate the pain
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
So what is the crime
In crying out to God
In the black of the night
I must let down my guard
She's fought a war with her callousness
And her callousness won
She would deny it but the words won't come
Acting like she don't care is her only defense
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
We take it so hard
We drive ourselves insane
We make things worse
And we aggravate the pain
Living in the age of the broken heart
In the age of the broken heart
So what is the crime
In crying out to God
In the black of the night
I must let down my guard
In Mark Heard's song Age of the Broken Heart, he sings about the pain and heartbreak that people experience in their lives, particularly in romantic relationships. The song is about a woman who receives a letter from her partner, telling her that he is leaving. As she reads the letter, she cannot help but cry, but her partner does not feel any pity towards her as he is too busy feeling sorry for himself. The lyrics suggest that in our current age, we are experiencing an epidemic of broken hearts, where people take things too hard and drive themselves insane with their emotions. Instead of finding ways to heal or deal with the pain, we find ways to make things worse and aggravate the pain that we already feel.
The song describes the woman driving around with a soul that is heavy with pain and heartache. She tries to hide her emotions by forcing a smile, but her sadness is revealed in the frown that forms instead. It is suggested that she has been fighting a war with her callousness, but the war is over, and the callousness has won. She cannot deny the pain anymore, but she still pretends like she does not care. The lyrics suggest that it is okay to cry out to God and let down our guard in the black of the night. It is okay to be vulnerable and need help to heal our hearts from the pain that we have experienced from broken relationships.
Line by Line Meaning
She gets his letter and she reads it well
She receives his letter and reads it carefully
With tears on her face
Tears roll down her face as she reads the letter
He says he's leaving her but he feels no disgrace
He informs her that he is leaving, feeling no shame or guilt
He can't pity her while he pities himself
He is too wrapped up in his own problems to feel sympathy for her
Every day as she drives downtown
As she commutes to work everyday
She's distant and cold
She keeps her distance and comes across as cold and aloof
The rear-view mirror reveals her soul
Her reflections in the car's rear view mirror betray her true emotions
She forces a smile
She tries to fake a smile
But it comes out a frown
But it ends up looking like a frown
She's fought a war with her callousness
She has built thick skin to protect herself from emotional hurt
And her callousness won
Her defenses triumphed against the challenges to her feelings
She would deny it but the words won't come
She refuses to acknowledge her pain but can't find the words to articulate it
Acting like she don't care is her only defense
Being nonchalant is the only way she can protect herself
Living in the age of the broken heart
We inhabit times where heartaches are prevalent
In the age of the broken heart
A period dominated by lonely and grieving hearts
We take it so hard
We get deeply affected by these heartbreaks
We drive ourselves insane
We obsess over our problems and make them worse
We make things worse
We cause problems for ourselves through bad decisions
And we aggravate the pain
We amplify our pains and sufferings to unbearable levels
So what is the crime
What is the sin in...
In crying out to God
In praying to a higher power for help and direction
In the black of the night
In the nighttime when everything is dark
I must let down my guard
I must be honest and open about my emotions
Contributed by Connor F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.