The Song of My Heart: Everybody Knows

This is a song I wrote a very long time ago but only got around to recording and uploading to the internet recently.

It’s the song I play by default anytime I sit at the piano and it’s what I call the song of my heart – I could literally listen to this song on repeat endlessly without ever getting tired of it.

It’s a sad, hauntingly beautiful kind of song, so if you’re looking for something happy and upbeat you definitely aren’t going to find it here. Go listen to In The Cold Sky instead. It’s a much lighter happier kind of song Ray + I did together.

Anyways, once you hit play on the song below, scroll down for the story.

About This Song

Someone commented on my SoundCloud, “There’s something about this song that relieves some tension in my heart. What story plays in your head when you listen to this song?”

Well, I guess the story starts with how I learned how to play the piano: I only had 3 lessons.

My grandma was a really good pianist – she actually was the organist at our church, played piano for the Comtra Theatre and even gave piano lessons. She started teaching me how to play when I was about 3 or 4 years old. She had a piano book and was teaching me the basics. Then she got really sick and died of cancer.

I cried for 3 days non-stop when she died – my whole world crashed. My grandpa threw away most of what mattered to me at such a young age. All I had left of my grandma was her piano.

So, I would try to play it. I taught myself some more basics by using the Reader’s Digest Children Songbook that she had. Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog was my favorite song out of that book to play.

Then a few more years went by and after I learned to play guitar I also learned a couple of basic chords of the piano. My mom was playing the piano too, so I learned a couple of things then. C chord, D minor chord…I sort of fell in love with the A minor chord and this song started…and really just never stopped.

One time I played this song on a grand piano in our high school auditorium for an audience of 0. Nobody else was there. The grand piano was a little too “in-tune” for my taste, but the reverb in the auditorium was awesome.

Another time I played this song was on the old beat up piano in the hallway of my college dorm. Not sure why there was a piano there or if we were even supposed to/allowed to play it but that was an example of the perfect sound – lots of reverb in the hall and from the stairs and the piano definitely hadn’t been tuned in eons.

I recorded this song on our Yamaha Digital Piano. That piano is great, don’t get me wrong – but this song truly sounds a lot better on a real piano – better if the piano is older and slightly out of tune because then you really get a nice effect with the reverb and the harmonies of all the notes in between.

There’s really only one piano in the world it sounds right on – and that’s my grandma’s piano that’s sitting in my mother’s dining room. It hasn’t been tuned in decades. It’s the right piano for a song like this – not just because it sounds the best, but because it’s my grandma’s piano.

While the Yamaha digital piano makes it hard to really capture that real piano sound, it did at least do one very important thing – it captured the song as a midi file and made it super easy to record. Literally just plug your laptop in the piano, open up logic pro and press record.

This is the song of my heart, and I can’t just let it sit neglected in my head for no one to ever know or hear.

Everybody Knows – The Lyrics

Some people might wonder why this song is called Everybody Knows…

Well, when I play it I sort of have these lyrics going on in my head. The lyrics change depending on my mood.

But the "official ones" are the ones I recorded for Suno. I wanted to hear it as a "real polished professionally produced song". Sorry AI haters, I hate what AI did to me too but it's all foobar now. Might as well use it.

Everybody knows your sorrow
Everybody hums along
Everybody feels that hollow
When the quiet lasts too long
I am playing on your piano
In a living room of dust
Every note is saying I know
Every chord is saying trust

[Chorus]
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Something’s wrong with you
Everybody holds, everybody holds
Something breaking through
In the echo of the keys, in the shadows of this room
Everybody knows, everybody knows
But no one saves the tune

[Verse 2]
I am older than I wanted
Still a child at these hands
Every memory is haunted
But the song still understands
I can hear it in my ribcage
I can’t play it quite the same
Every take a different message
Every version says your name

[Chorus]
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Something’s wrong with you
Everybody holds, everybody holds
Something breaking through
In the echo of the keys, in the shadows of this room
Everybody knows, everybody knows
But no one saves the tune

[Bridge]
Round and round, the hammer falls
Ghosts are dancing in the walls
I hit repeat, it will not last
I chase forever through the past
I am laughing at the typo
How it said that music dies
But it lives inside the night glow
In the water of my eyes

[Chorus]
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Something’s wrong with you
Everybody holds, everybody holds
Something breaking through
In the echo of the keys, in the shadows of this room
Everybody knows, everybody knows
I am still here with you

[Outro]
On your upright in the corner
Where the dust and daylight meet
I will play this song forever
On a broken-hearted beat
Every key a little prayer
Every crack a little light
Everybody knows, everybody knows
I will love you through the night

Here's the Suno version:

Eventually one day I'll record it for real, but for me this is good enough. Mr Rock Star music producer says the high end in the beginning needs cut down lol 🤣