I could write a book on these songs, as they’ve lived in my head for 20 years, but I’ll do my best to keep it to a few sentences.These songs were written in 2005-2006. It was a time where you could go to a show and a ska band, a hardcore band, a grindcore band, and a pop punk band could be on the same bill and everyone was there to enjoy it all. The gate keeping of genres wasn’t there yet and even tho alot of that music including ours is considered “emo” now - no one took that title willingly back then.
We Cure the Hearts has always been about blaming others while navigating responsibility and finding the willpower and mental capacity to overcome stress. It’s very much a “this too shall pass” kind of song, but as a husband and father now, the ending with the countdown and the lyrics “Oh God, this stress keeps coming, this weight is so damn numbing, and I keep running out of time” resonates with me more than ever.
Music Is My Medicine was the first song we ever wrote, and for many of us coming from previous bands, it pulled us away from our punk and pop punk roots and towards the emotional music that was just starting in the early 2000s. It became an ode to the songs and bands that saved people’s lives. We heard that a lot growing up. Back in 2006 it was always “this band” or “that song saved my life.” Maybe it wasn’t literal for everyone, but for some it truly was.
Either way, it made people feel something, which is the most important part of music to us. Mental health wasn’t as approachable then as it is now. A lot of time was spent alone in your room with a CD player, working things out on your own with the newest Bayside or Poison the Well album and this song is about that.
Her Achilles Heel is a song about a relationship where you give so much but don’t get what you need in return. We loved ending shows with its breakdown. The chorus still rings true later in life just as much as it did in our teenage years. “I need support, the bridges I build fall too quickly.”
Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge was the last song we ever wrote going into our college years. It’s about drinking too much, falling in love, and being conflicted by those feelings afterward. A true coming of age song, it embodied living through college with your heart on your sleeve.
Hard to Breathe is my magnum opus about getting your heart broken and moving on. Sometimes moving on makes the worst come out of you. Sometimes you are spiteful and vengeful, and that energy certainly lives in this song. Our songs touch about the emotions but no where in these songs is it about cowering over a heartbreak or fall out of friendship, In all of these there is finding confidence and strength and putting things behind you or in this case, putting them in the ground.