The Meaning Of: HEAVEN
Crissi Cochrane
Welcome back to The Meaning Of, a series of blog posts exploring the meaning behind each song from my 2020 album, Heirloom. I’ll explain the stories that inspired the songs, and reveal some of the roots and references that helped shape my musical and lyrical choices. If there’s something particular that you’re curious about that I haven’t revealed, leave me a question in the comments below, and I’ll be pleased to answer it.
The next song in the series - and the second-to-last song on the album - is Heaven.
I wrote this song the day after the 2015 Grammy Awards. Not having cable TV for most of my adult life, it’s been very rare that I’ve ever tuned in to watch any kind of award shows. Somehow, I caught the broadcast in 2015, and while the finale with John Legend and Common performing “Glory” was my favourite, I also very much enjoyed seeing Lady Gaga channelling her inner Amy Winehouse in a duet of “Cheek to Cheek” with Tony Bennett.
The next day, I was at the sink doing dishes, humming “Cheek to Cheek”. Other than the title of the song and the opening words “heaven - I’m in heaven”, I didn’t know how the song went, so I was idly inventing my own melodies and words.
At that point in time, practicing vocal improvisation was my favourite thing. It feels like flying, and the more you do it, the more you reach these divine places, and music becomes a realm of magic, endless possibility.
After a few minutes, I realized I had strayed quite far from the original, and I had started to tap into my associations with heaven - the part of my brain that is always struggling with my mortality, and another that was at work on my wedding vows - and the way those thoughts came together began to move me.
So I stepped away from the sink and sat at my little desk in the window where I did all of my writing, took out my phone, and started to record. What emerged was a fully-fledged song, from start to finish - improvisational, with no exact chorus or verses, just a flow-state, train-of-thought, free-form song. It remains the only time I have ever written a song this way.
It isn’t uncommon for me to stitch my mortality into my songwriting, but in “Heaven”, I feel like I actually managed to find some peace for myself, considering heaven as a place that we create for ourselves, with our own ideologies - whether that’s here and now on earth with the ones that we love, or a belief in something that may come after. In the face of so much dogma, taking creative control and authoring your own idea of heaven is a power so bold that it’s like taking fate into your own hands, rearranging the stars in the sky, and your own stories become biblical. Show me where you put the stars in the sky, tell me stories that you love from you and I.
Part of the reason why I named my 2014 album Little Sway was because I was so fascinated with the memoirs of a young nun, Saint Marie Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), and her philosophy of the Little Way. I’m not religious and never have been, but I often find something symbolic in religious beliefs that becomes deeply meaningful to me, and I felt a lot of empathy for her at that time in my life. She often mentioned several siblings who died very young - three as infants, and one at five years old - and the way she cast them as ever-present angels had a great impact on me. I came to believe that when someone dies loving you, their love becomes immutable, an eternally unbroken fact. Forever.
Saint Marie Therese of Lisieux.
It wasn’t until Mike proposed to me that I suddenly started to think about the future. Almost as soon as the ring touched my finger, I began to take a greater interest in domestic things, thinking about what type of wife I wanted to be, and realizing that motherhood, too, wasn’t so far away at all.
And somehow, I was thinking about Marie-Therese’s little angels, and all the little ones who precede their elders into the great unknown, and I couldn’t fail to include them in my thoughts about what heaven should be. So it’s them who I am kissing, “while they sleep".
That day, I was also busy working away at the wording of my wedding vows. We had hired a Justice of the Peace to officiate, and there were certain words she wouldn’t say in a secular ceremony - in particular, the word “worship”, although I was desperately in love with an old traditional vow that says “with this ring, I thee wed; with my body, I thee worship”. I think the fact that I was forbidden from using the word “worship” in my own wedding vows made me all the more determined to immortalize it in a song instead. I will love you, and worship you deep.
HEAVEN - CRISSI COCHRANE
Heaven, baby why don't you take me there
Take away my cares
Of a long day
Heaven, take me to your heaven
Show me romance, forever, and your dreams
Show me things not what they seem
Heaven, take me to your heaven
Show me what it is that brings you all your joy
Heaven, take me to your heaven
Show me where you put the stars in the sky
Tell me stories that you love from you and I
Tell me all the little ways you pass the time
Heaven, oh is there really heaven?
Is there truly such a place that I can't see?
Baby, bring me, bring me to your heaven
And I'll kiss the little angels while they sleep
I will love you and worship you deep
And no matter if we part, one day we'll meet
In a heaven made by you and me
Baby, is there heaven?
A heaven - for you and me
Heaven, take me to your heaven
Show me what it is that brings you all your joy
Heaven, take me to your heaven
And I'll kiss the little angels while they sleep
I will love you and worship you deep
And no matter if we part, one day we'll meet
In a heaven made by you and me
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