Big Top Heartbreak – “My Breath Killed the Roses” (video) (premiere)

There’s a stanza in Billy Joel’s iconic “Piano Man” which applies pretty appropriately to Big Top Heartbreak: “And the piano it sounds like a carnival / And the microphone smells like a beer / And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar / And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?'” Because “My Breath Killed the Roses” is a deeply melancholy affair, a deceptively misanthropic ode set to gorgeous piano and gloriously imperfect violin. Its uninhibited sadness mingles with unbreakable optimism, pinned up by Scott Lavene’s cracked baritone. “It’s all about love,” sings Lavene, and in a twisted way — as with Joel’s masterpiece — the tragedy chronicled herein ends up driving unambiguously towards that love.

“My Breath Killed the Roses” is a tale of how it was and how i hoped it could be,” says Lavene. “The song pretends to be an anthemic ode to self pity, but goes on to mock the old deadbeat lifestyle and deliver a chorus full of hope. I wrote it whilst in the soft arms of a house for the bewildered and it was the first song written for Big Top Heartbreak. It was the start of a climb out of the shade and a step forward into an electric burst of creativity.”

Big Top Heartbreak’s Deadbeat Ballads releases October 17th.