About “I Gave You My Heart”

I am inspired to write songs from literal moments of intense feelings about a person, a
situation, or about an idea. Sometimes my petulance turns creative as it did in this song.
I started out wanting to write a song about dissatisfaction with my love life at a time when
life was a struggle. This song was written on 10/10/1996; I was 43. Life was a slog. Get
up, get dressed, get the kids up and dressed, feed people, get the kids off to school,
clean up, go to work and do my best for 8 hours without really wanting to be there, drag
my ass back home at the end of my shift and be the mom and the wife until time to crash
and burn. This went on for months that felt like years.

My man was equally stressed at this time. There was always something or someone
needing his attention and time away from home. He was overworked, overtired,
frustrated with his job, and couldn’t find the time or energy to feel one bit romantic. All of
his artistic passion went into cooking our meals. Sleep became the most important thing.
I took this momentary problem and expanded the idea to be about someone so
frustrated they are ready to call it a day. The song virtually wrote itself. Once I got started
with the first verse, the rest of the song just came together.

FYI, I never actually thought about leaving my man or looking for love outside of our
relationship, but the ideas were there in the context of the verses. Thoughts of
dissatisfaction can lead to thoughts of escape to potentially better horizons.

Track 2: I Gave You My Heart – lead guitar: Dennis Flink, acoustic guitar and vocals: Pauline Trabert