Australian indie pop band Joan & the Giants simmer things down to a spellbinding, smoldering slow burn in their breathtakingly intimate ballad “Feels Like Heartache,” exposing real hurt and pain in a gut-wrenchingly beautiful, brutally honest song of love, loss, addiction, and longing.
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Stream: “Feels Like Heartache” – Joan & the Giants
When you’re next to me, it feels like I can’t breathe, and when you leave, I just want you next to me…
Honesty is the best policy in life, as in song – and Joan & the Giants have been nothing, if not brutally honest.
The Boorloo / Perth-based indie pop band have dazzled ears and won hearts all over the world this past year with energetic live performances and impassioned songs like “BEG,” “Good Time,” and “Born in the Wrong Time” – but nothing is quite as revealing, or as raw, as this past July’s breathtaking ballad, “Feels Like Heartache.” The four-piece simmer things down to a spellbinding, smoldering slow burn as they expose real, lived pain in a gut-wrenchingly beautiful song of love, loss, addiction, and longing.
It’s an achingly intimate inner reckoning that hits hard and leaves a lasting mark, highlighting Joan & the Giants’ spectacular talents as songwriters, storytellers, musicians, and world-builders.
Pull me in
With your dark eyes
And your sweet lies
Skin on skin
I don’t want you but I lie too
And your gravity
Is stronger than anything
I’m an addict
You are human heroin
But I know you
Don’t want me
Like I want you
Independently released July 8, 2024, “Feels Like Heartache” is Joan & the Giants’ soul-stirring, all-consuming, and emotionally charged third single of the year. Already an Atwood Magazine favorite, the band – comprised of Grace Newton-Wordsworth, Aaron Birch, Riley Sutto, and Liam Olsen – create a tender moment of vulnerability and connection through three heartrending minutes of confession and upheaval.
Because as simple as we want our love stories to be, nothing about love is “simple”; and if you do find the right person at the right time and place, that’s just the beginning. It may come easy, but love takes hard work; it takes mindfulness and nurturing, intentionality, commitment, and dedication. It’s worth every bit you put into it, but we’re not always able – or capable – of doing that; and in “Feels Like Heartache,” lead vocalist Grace Newton-Wordsworth reflects on a moment when she, herself, struggled with her love story.
The song’s chorus is at once a cathartic exhale and an emotional climax of all the tension and turmoil built into its verses. Newton-Wordsworth’s voice rings out over gentle guitars and strings as she unveils her innermost thoughts and feelings – all those things we’re often too afraid to say aloud.
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
If I leave or stay
It hurts either way
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
Even though you say
That you’re gonna change
“‘Feels Like Heartache’ is the most deeply personal and honest song we’ve written,” Newton-Wordsworth tells Atwood Magazine. “It’s centered around longing for the person you love more than anything but knowing it’s an addiction and isn’t good for you. Being brutally honest isn’t easy, but honesty to us is a very important thing, especially in our songwriting.”
Newton-Wordsworth and guitarist Aaron Birch have been writing and recording as bandmates, whilst also being in a relationship for the past 9 years. This song isn’t just some story about heartache and hardship; it’s an authentic, bittersweet piece of their lives. “Whilst 2024 has had many highs musically, our personal relationship has been going through it,” Newton-Wordsworth admits.
“We wrote this song in the midst of a chaotic storm and it was a cathartic way of saying how we felt about stepping away from each other,” Birch adds. “It’s raw, and it’s heartache, and the song just really says it all.”
Pull me in with your dark jokes
And your high hopes
I can’t win
You’re a lost cause and I won’t let go
When you’re next to me
It feels like I can’t breathe
And when you leave
I just want you next to me
But I know you don’t want me
Like I want you
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
If I leave or stay
It hurts either way
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
Even though you say
That you’re gonna change
It’s raw, and it’s heartache, and the song just really says it all.
“Feels Like Heartache” hurts to high heaven, but it’s that good kind of pain that leaves you feeling more in touch with yourself, your bones, your heart, and your soul.
Already well on their way to being one of 2024’s breakout acts (after working tirelessly – and independently! – for the past five-plus years), Joan & the Giants can now hang their proverbial hats on the fact that, fast or slow, anthem or ballad, their songs are uncompromising, unfiltered, unapologetic, and undeniable. The band recently followed “Feels Like Heartache” up with the dreamy, dynamic, and heartwarming single “How Could You?” (released September 20th) – but for all those in need of a hauntingly beautiful, true blue ballad, look no further than this past July’s “Feels Like Heartache.”
Because it really truly does.
I can’t leave you
Got nowhere to run to
I’m an addict
Can’t live without ya
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
If I leave or stay
It hurts either way
It feels like heartache
It feels like heartache
You’re all that I have
All that I have
It feels like heartache
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Stream: “Feels Like Heartache” – Joan & the Giants
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