My Heart Is Not A Machine : A Post-Reichenbach Mix For Heavy Burdens & Aching Bones
When I saw the first Series Three teaser for Sherlock at the start of the month I was immediately compelled to action by that glimpse of Sherlock’s face at the very end as he walks into the restaurant and views John, presumably for the first time, since being away after the fall. His face is a combination of hopeful, nervous, pained, and perhaps a little saddened at what he is about to do - to reveal himself after all this time, to walk back into the lives of the people he has left behind as if he has never left (while they have all tried to move on and live life anew) - to make it known just what he has done and how much pain he has caused (whether it was for the good of those he loves or not). All it took were those few seconds (and Benedict’s hint about the character trajectory of Sherlock in Series Three) to plant the seed, and as happens with all of my ideas that are eventually brought to fruition, it has become the focus of my mind for the past month.
Beware: There is a novel of meta under the cut; along with (of course) the track list, covers, lyrics, listening and download links.
I’ve always had a fascination with Sherlock’s journey immediately following the moment he becomes a ghost. A man as intensely unemotional as Sherlock is has his detached foundation fractured by the end of Series Two, set to shatter completely as he embarks on this new, dangerous journey of his own. Thus, it always begs the question of me: how does he cope emotionally with what follows? In the interim, when he is living in solitude, alone with his thoughts, his burdens, who he is, what he’s done, and what he has to do in order to return, what personal demons and emotional trials does he face from the immediate aftermath of the fall right up to the moment he raises himself from the dead? What brings him to be that man that seems so overwhelmed with emotion on viewing his best friend after months, years?
My hope is that this mix is a very internal, in character exploration of an emotional arc that takes place during the time intervening between Sherlock at his own graveside and Sherlock seeing John again for the first time.
If I’m honest, once things are set to rights, I can see Sherlock as a man going to try his hardest to keep everything as it was. He liked As It Was. As It Was is the life he loved. As It Was - worked. He is unemotional by nature and thus, never truly will betray too many feelings, he will always try (and at times need) to separate himself from deeper emotion, but this (very brief) private moment in the restaurant reveals a man who has been altered by a life lived differently. A life of solitude and isolation. A life of relentless danger and deep loneliness. A life lived in darkness for the sake of returning to the light. This is a man who has been weighed down by the burdens he has carried in solitude, and a man longing to return to the things he misses (and loves). This is a man who cares much more than he would ever let on to an audience, and maybe this is a man who, through this battle, has learned a tiny bit more to understand his own attachment to those he loves and that to embrace emotion is not always a disadvantage. So without further ado:
MY HEART IS NOT A MACHINE
A POST-REICHENBACH MIX
FOR HEAVY BURDENS & ACHING BONES BORNE IN SOLITUDE BY THE MAN WHO FELL
about.
Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock. The words are an axiom. They are a self-evident truth, vital to his being - just as essential as the blood in his veins and the brain in his head (That extraordinary mind - cogs constantly turning, sparking, electrified with some new theory, deduction, or thought). However, the heart -the heart is just a muscle - a necessary mechanism to keep the rest of him working - moving - breathing - living.
So then why do his legs feel laden with lead weights and his mind seem unable to turn to any train of thought save the empty suit staring back at him in the mirror? [An empty suit burdened with the things he must finish (Moriarty’s Network) - the things he has finished (Sherlock Holmes. Dishonoured. Deceased.) - and the things he left behind (Baker Street - it’s as good as burned now - for him anyway - he can’t go back; Mrs. Hudson; Molly; Lestrade; and John - that lone silhouette, one hand on his gravestone, another at his eyes - the memory that continues to haunt him).] Why does he wake up (when he sleeps - which is not often) shaking, drenched in beads of cold sweat, visions of blood and buildings, a blurred image of a man standing atop it, teetering on the edge of the precipice, dancing behind his eyelids? This is not him.
He may be a ghost, but he’s not dead. Still - that doesn’t keep him from feeling it - (and in his darkest moments) wishing it. (All he wants is to go back.)
And there it is - the dust on the lens: caring (loving). Since that day he left after flying (falling) from Bart’s rooftop he can feel it winding its way through his bones and sinew - his heart (just a muscle, Sherlock - just a muscle) - paralyzing him from the inside out (traitor). It’s like he’s living outside himself - wanting desperately to be whole again, but never quite getting there. He’s suffocating. Drowning. Fighting to regain control. (This is what caring is like, is it?)
This chaos is a sickness that grows within him. It’s a weakened state that attacks him at a steady pace: vultures at every turn breathing down his neck (the demons of his own making or those gifted him by a man now dead and gone). At the start, it leaves him numb and desperate - stuck in perpetual stagnation. Then there is anger - a determined resolve seizing his insides, pressing him onward. Sometimes he is hopeful (sometimes home feels so close), sometimes he is not (sometimes he wonders if he’ll make it back whole, sometimes he wonders if anything will be the same if he does).
But always he is saddened and solitary - burdened and bruised - bones aching. He’s a man a little less like he was with every day that passes - scars acting as a road map - directing him through cities and countries that have molded him, shaped him, drained him dry. He is a little more broken, a little more tired. He is a little wiser, and a little more determined. He is a little darker (a lot more blood on his hands) and yet the light shines a little brighter (my heart is not a machine, it beats for you and all the others that I love). Always he is reminded of what he did and his reasons for it (I’m a threat). Always he is aware of all he gave up (lost). Always he remembers what he is fighting to regain and if he’s honest, he knows exactly why (love is a much more vicious motivator).
This is a mix dedicated to the solitary journey of Sherlock Holmes and the emotional trials and personal demons faced from the moments immediately following the fall to the eve of his return. It is not regarding the act of getting back, but the emotional consequences that result from his sacrifice. Ultimately, it is about confronting the fact [one he’s always known deep down - and has counted as weakness (“we both know that’s not quite true”)] that his heart is not simply a mechanism used to pump blood, but an active emotional entity that began to fully reveal itself the moment he sacrificed himself for those he loves. Subsequently, it is also the driving force behind the emotional and physical journey he takes (from sickness and death to recovery and resurrection) in his effort to return.
The music is divided into three parts:
I N T R O
This section is a single track signaling the beginning of the emotional aftermath of the fall. It is a musical, lyrical, and vocal representation of the Sherlock who begins living displaced from his being the moment he leaves Bart’s as a dead man and walks into the “world beyond” - viewing his life behind a glass that replays what he has done over in his mind - a surreal reiteration brought on by shock - almost dreamlike - as he floats through the fanciful world in his head, a ghost watching his body (his world) drift away with hands helpless to stop it.
S I C K N E S S . / . D E A T H
This is the first of the two main sections of the mix. The Intro leads directly into an exploration of the Sherlock who is left alone only with his mind and his nightmares for company. This is for the man grieving as he faces the destruction wrought on his life - on the lives of his friends. It is for the man living in solitude. The man who is assaulted by the numbness, the sadness, and the despair, brought on by caring. The man who is no longer himself - a man dead but alive, suffocating - losing control. It is about the disease that grows within him at the full comprehension of what he has done in the days (weeks, months) following the fall and at the things that must still be done. This is for the man struggling to walk, to traverse the ruins of his past life and the hopelessness which seems to lie before him. This is for the man wrestling with who he was, who he is, and what he will become.
R E C O V E R Y . / . R E S U R R E C T I O N
The second section is a transition to the man beginning to heal. The final two tracks of the previous section are characterized by a steady rise in tempo, continuing into the final section, a gradual alteration indicative of the change going on within Sherlock - an introduction to the man seeking to be reborn from his tragedy. It is a steady awakening of anger towards the vultures at his back vying for what is left of him and a determined motivation to recover control and take action in order to regain what he lost (be it those he loves or peace of mind). While the music takes on a new air of hopefulness, lyrically, the first four tracks in this section all related to Sherlock’s recovery, retain a thread of darkness and melancholy suggestive of the solitary nature, the physical and emotional bruises, the exhaustion of body and mind, and the wars with his demons he must continue to face on the road to rebirth. They represent a man who is determined but knows he still has a long, dangerous path to tread and a man confronting the emotional characteristics of the heart, its use beyond the mechanical, and the fact that he is made susceptible to them (and that maybe that’s not always a shortcoming). They represent a man irrevocably affected by his experience - a man the same but a man changed - a man still as brilliant but more broken - a man still as stubborn but more easily touched by emotion - and a man anticipating the moment he will return but marked by those fleeting moments that he and the things he left behind will never be the same.
The closing two tracks in this section are the precursor of Sherlock’s resurrection. Track twelve is the last glance back at the cities engraved into his flesh and the experiences which led him to this moment. It is the heralding of a new dawn, the departure from the darkness, and hope sparked anew. The final track serves at the ultimate realization, a bookend, the reason for both the musical and character journey, and the basis for every song before. It is an acceptance of his own heart as an emotionally functioning organ, realized through the loneliness, solitude, hopelessness, destruction, danger, emptiness, fight, resolve, and hope experienced by a man who flew (fell), a man who died, a man who lived for weeks (months, years) as a ghost fighting to be reborn all for the safety of the people he loves.
INTRO
L I K E . S P I N N I N G . P L A T E S .†. (T I M B R E)
And this just feels like spinning plates
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
My body's floating down a muddy river
SICKNESS / DEATH
I N . S O L I T U D E .†. (A N C I E N T . M A R I N E R)
And the mirror in me is one that's cracked
There's no consistency of the man in the glass
Oh it's terrible to be alone with a person that you don't know
F I R E ‘ S . N E V E R . W R O N G .†. (S T R A Y . D O G G)
Everything I've known
Everything I've lived for
Everything I've owned
Everything I've worked for
Gets blown in the air
Everything went wrong
S W E L L I N G .†. (S A R A H . J A F F E)
Hello, how do you feel?
What does that mean?
High, I guess I feel high
Cold sweat dripping down my body
All I want to do now is lay down and die
If you’re gonna do it, you better do it right
But my heart won’t stop swelling
A . S E N S E . OF . G R E Y .†. (M O D D I)
And don't jump when you know you can't fly
At least you don't seem to have wings
Don't dream when you can't make it real
They're only fictions anyway
And don't love if you really want to feel
The spiking sense of grey
K N I V E S . I N . M Y . S P I N E .†. (P A U L . M A R S H A L L)
Vultures can't hold pens; still they write
But their gaze is like a knife
Turning in my spine
So I'll wave goodbye
To all the old personality traits
And I make way for the new
Now I can't breathe at all
Let me out
C O N T R O L .†. (T H E . R E V I V A L . H O U R)
Struggle for my own control
I want out, I want out
We’re covered in sand
RECOVERY / RESURRECTION
V U L T U R E S .†. (F O L L Y . & . T H E . H U N T E R)
This disease in a weakened heart
Made a nest
What I want from this bottled poison
Is some rest from this mess
I give up
I repent
My money is spent
I am rotting to the core
It's what the vultures hunger for
C A R R I E R .†. (S P R I N G . O F F E N S I V E)
This morning was spent in my window
It seems to help them in movies
But I hope that their view's less boring
And this sequence will end
I feel burnt out
I feel dried up
And suddenly my muscle is twisted
All around, and my body's a mess
I'm a hot blooded mammal
And my heart's just a muscle
It pumps my blood around me
And I need every drop to help me
It's not something I understand
It takes its time, I understand
But things have changed, you understand
T H E . H U N T .†. (Y O U T H . L A G O O N) .
As the foxes hunt
All the chickens start to run
Next thing I know
My neck no longer has a front
All the wars are made
I won't sleep until my grave
I am young but I am brave
And I am not your slave
I will swear to you now that I'm not what they say
I have a sickness in my head that won't go away
And by the time the bugs eat their way out of my skull
Will you still say I love you?
Will you still want my soul?
Y O U . A N D . I .†. (P A L P I T A T I O N)
Echoes in my head
I dream, I feel at night
The time goes by
But here it stands still all the time
I'm not the one I'd like to be
Why can't you see?
V A P O U R .†. (V A N C O U V E R . S L E E P . C L I N I C)
London Bridge is caving in
Cities melt into my skin
It's looking thin
Where my heart is there's never a home
These wooden doors are closed and this prison's cold
In my glory bowing out to the crowd
Returning to the ground
What a moment, encountering the dawn
Breathing in the air that I've never known
In my glory bowing out to the crowd
Returning to the ground
M Y . H E A R T . I S . N O T . A . M A C H I N E .†. (W H I T L E Y)
My heart is not a machine
It beats for you and all the others that I love
My heart is not anything
That you haven’t seen before
It sings 'hold me now'
Did I think I was a king somehow?
Alone is a song
Where the lonely belong
LISTEN ON 8TRACKS // DL.
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