We’ve had a fair few ‘sentimental’ tracks recently; indeed the previous post was of a poignant ode from father to daughter.
Tonight it’s the turn of Sweden’s Eva Hillered. The story behind her song ‘Loving Hearts’ is a long one, and I’ll attempt to paraphrase it here.
It seems she wrote it some time ago for a good friend who was getting married and it is an acoustic love ballad that relates interpersonal love to love as a universal force bonding all human beings, animals, and nature. She envisaged love as something that suddenly can occur as a beautiful flower unfolding between people, at the prompting, if I read it correctly, of the Indian philosopher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Eva is clearly a philosopher and psychologist herself. We learn elsewhere that she has studied (Carl Gustaf) Jung and some years ago had an epiphany while reading one of his texts on a Greek island that helped her to find the love of her life when all seemed lost.
She says ‘Loving Hearts’ is quite different from her other work and having checked out some recent singles I concur. They are more upbeat and snappy to what she describes as her “stepped down” sound here.
The common link is a sort of subtle, cultured Americana. I was tempted to say I haven’t heard anything that is quite so deeply philosophical coming from a female Swedish singer-songwriter but some parallels might be drawn with Helena Montgomery, whose style is different but who consistently produces similarly thoughtful songs that are equally sweet without being sugary.
And her vocal delivery is excellent, the perfect accompaniment to a song of this nature.
It might not be what she wants to read because I don’t think it was ever the intention but I can see how ‘Loving Hearts’ could easily become a soundtrack to a TV romantic drama or rom-com.
A video was premiered today along with the release of the song, in which Eva chose a minimalist setting, juxtaposing heart-shaped stones, human hands, and flowers against a plain concrete floor to accentuate the profound potency of love when it blossoms between individuals.
She is a stone collector (not bone collector, that’s a scary movie) and quickly found seven heart-shaped ones on the beach on Crete where she lives.
You know the funny thing is that I’ve got a collection of stones that are almost identical to those on display here that I’ve collected during my travels – a piece of a Pyramid, one from the Temple of Apollo in Athens, another from the Forum in Rome, a piece of Icelandic lava rock, and so on although none of them are heart shaped. And I’m still single.
There’s a moral there somewhere.
Find her on:
Website: https://www.evahillered.se/english-summary/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EvaHillered
Twitter: https://twitter.com/evahillered
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evahillered/
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