Take My Heart

Song story & origins

Introduction

The song Take My Heart appears on the 2018 album A. Dream, a record shaped in part by fear and uncertainty about the world and in part by longing for healing and connection. This song in particular carries the form of a prayer, or mantra, though it was born in a very uncharacteristic way for me—at the piano rather than the guitar.

Where the song came from

Unlike most of my music, which begins with the guitar, Take My Heart began on piano. That’s unusual because I don’t consider myself a pianist. I love the instrument, but I don’t play it well enough to feel at home there. Yet one day this melody and progression came while I was at the keyboard, and it grew naturally into the song it became. That origin shaped its tone. The piano gave it a different, more meditative pulse, something simple and chant-like, which is why it carries the quality of a mantra.

The lyric itself unfolded like a litany. Line after line offers up another part of myself: heart, hand, feet, head, eyes, ears, chin, mouth. It’s cumulative, like a prayer of surrender. That form comes from my background in church music, where I grew up singing hymns that were prayers of submission. The difference here is that instead of resignation, there is trust. The giving away of self in Take My Heart is not defeat but a reaching toward safety.

What the song is saying

At its core, Take My Heart is about loneliness and the need to be held. The lyric “Give me a dream of you instead” captures the plea for relief from fear and dread. The surrender is not empty—it’s an act of seeking healing. Repetition gives the song its strength. When the lines repeat—“Take my heart and hold it tight”—the mantra becomes not just a plea but a rhythm of comfort.

Because of that, the song sits somewhere between prayer and love song. It could be addressed to God, or it could be spoken to another person. Either way, it’s about the deep human longing not to be alone. The act of offering up each part of oneself becomes the path toward restoration. Even the closing phrase, “This song of love and healing,” names what the whole piece is doing: it heals through its very form.

Context and album

Take My Heart belongs to the album A. Dream. The title is shorthand for “American Dream,” and the album was born out of a moment when that very phrase was publicly declared dead. In a presidential inaugural address, the words were spoken: “The American dream is dead.” That line haunted me.

Much of the record wrestles with that statement and what it means for us as individuals and as a nation. The album came from a place of darkness, a sense of division and fear about the future. Songs from it reflect on whether the ideals we grew up believing in still have life. Take My Heart doesn’t address politics directly, but in its context it becomes a prayer not just for one person but for all of us. It is about healing divisions, bridging loneliness, and offering ourselves to one another in trust.

Music and arrangement

Because the song began on piano, that instrument defines its shape, even though the final recording also brings in guitar and voice. The chords are simple, the melody repetitive, and that’s intentional. The spareness allows the words themselves to carry the weight. There is a chant-like quality, something meditative. The arrangement supports rather than competes with that quality.

The song resists ornamentation. Its repetition is its strength. In the studio at Dancin’ Moon, I recorded it with that in mind, keeping the texture open so that the mantra could breathe.

Why it stays with me

Take My Heart remains a song of healing for me. It solves the problem of loneliness by offering an answer: give yourself away. Not in despair, but in trust. It acknowledges dread and fear but responds with surrender and hope.

In the context of A. Dream, it becomes more than a personal plea. It becomes a cultural one, too. In times of fear and division, the only way forward is through offering ourselves to one another in trust and love. In that sense, the song is not just a prayer for me but for all of us.

Excellent. Here is the fully revised Episode 4: Refuge, now in the narrative style with headings, and including every detail, story, and reflection from the full transcript.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx