Broken hearts and bonded bands
The rebuilding of a musical friendship post breakup
I was cradling the neck of my upright bass with my left elbow, leaning on the arm of the couch in my mum’s apartment, and listening to Cy playing me the new song he’d just finished.
It was a beautiful, poignant song called How Red Is The Blood From A Broken Heart. A song - I was quickly realizing - about our recent breakup.
“How red is the blood from a broken heart
How rich is the colour that bleeds
Is it scarlet and bright, a sailor's delight
Or heavy; the darkness that snaps at its heels”
Cy and I had started as friends at high school in New Zealand, lost touch in our early twenties, and then reconnect via Myspace when I was studying at UNLV in Las Vegas and he was working in London as a musician.
We met up again while both in New Zealand for Christmas vacation and quickly fell head over heels for each other.
Music was one of the golden threads running through our relationship and we started playing music together as soon as I arrived in London a week after graduating from UNLV. We performed all over London doing jazz gigs, corporate events, weddings, and recorded our first album of Cy’s original music in our Americana band, Her Make Believe Band.
After five years in London, the cracks were beginning to show in our relationship so we packed up and came back to New Zealand, desperate to find the change that might get our relationship back on a good path.
The year that led to this particular moment - sitting in mum’s apartment in Ponsonby and listening to a song Cy had just written about our breakup - had been spent mostly trying not to break up at all.
We’d talked about it every few months, repeatedly committing to “keep trying”, while music became the only thing really holding us together.
Common sense told us that if we split up that would be it. No more band, no more gigs, no more income.
At that point, we were playing together all over Auckland in bars, corporate events, weddings, and doing tours and weekly residencies with our newly named original band, Tattletale Saints.
The musical and financial stakes were high so we held on as long as we could, scared to lose the gigs that were paying our bills and the musical partnership of a lifetime.
Eventually, though, we reached our breaking point as a couple and decided to go our separate ways - letting the musical chips fall where they may.
The first few months after breaking up we spent completely apart, Cy living with his parents and me back with my mum. We kept playing our regular weekly gigs - mostly out of financial necessity - but spent as little time around each other as we could while our hearts healed.
My tears were frequent and the pain deep and brutal.
As time dulled the heartache and we became used to being around each other in this new iteration, it started to look like there was a glimmer of hope for the future of our band.
We tentatively scheduled an experimental rehearsal and Cy came over to my mum’s place with his guitar, a new song, and a look of nervous trepidation.
I held it together as he played through the first and second verses of the song, but when he hit the third verse all the raw emotion bubbling just barely under the surface broke through.
“How deep is the wound I inflicted on you
And the cut that I gave to myself
How long for to heal, for to scar, for to feel
That my body has mended and returned to health”
As the floodgates opened I laid down my bass and went to the bathroom, to lock myself away and let the tears flow freely.
“I guess rehearsal is over for today?” Cy said nervously, when I came back from the bathroom, red-nosed and puffy-eyed.
Nothing worth it in life comes easily, and the rebuilding of this musical partnership would be no different.
This rehearsal had been difficult, but I knew it would get easier. And, most importantly, I knew it was worth it.
“Yes”, I said.
“But we can try again sometime soon”.