Nathan Perry

              Pain is a part of the human condition. Everyone is bound to face it at some point in life. Heart-ache and -break are common sorrows that people encounter in the world, especially among the younger generation. One question that often stems from this feeling is “who is responsible for this pain? Is it my fault, or someone else’s?” It is a difficult question to answer, but Demi Lovato’s “Stone Cold” and Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” both try to find a solution to the issue. Although they both ask the same question, each one views it in their own way, leading to very different conclusions: one by shouldering the pain alone, the other by blaming it all on someone else.

              The ballad “Stone Cold” talks about unrequited love. It begins with Lovato describing how she is hiding her pain within herself. She then tells her love that she’s tried her hardest to be happy for him. Despite how she doesn’t understand why, she claims that she will be alright with his decision to love someone else. As she sees him dance with his new love, Lovato begins to remember the time she spent with her crush. She used to mean so much to him, but now she’s become eclipsed by this new woman. She then gives a final goodbye to her love, repeats her promise to be happy for him, and then ends her song.

              Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” describes the struggle of being romantically pursued by someone who had caused pain in the past. Perri opens the ballad stating that her ex will only cause her regret; that he has lost any love she held for him. She states that he wants her to come back to him despite the pain he’s caused. She follows with tirade of how cold and heartless he is. She then details how the man had searched quite some time for her. Despite his devotion, Perri lets him know that she’s won’t fall for him again. She reminds him that he caused her to live an empty life before repeating her accusations of his cold-hearted actions. She recants how long it took for her to heal after he broke her heart. She tells her pursuer how much she regrets loving him, and responds to his rekindled affection by telling him he doesn’t deserve to get her back. The chorus of accusation returns for one last time, yelling at her ex for hurting her and telling him to never return. She ends the song by asking him who he thinks he is to ask for forgiveness.

              Demi Lovato’s song makes the argument that heartache is the burden of the lover. Despite the pain it causes her, she puts the happiness of her crush over her own desires. She describes this in multiple ways, one being the repeated line, “stone cold.” This line describes how Demi feels after discovering her crush had fallen in love with someone else. It’s a cold, hard shell that forms over her heart and protects her from pain at the cost of losing all feeling. It is repeated before every line, emphasizing the words that follow it. In the first verse, Demi says it in an unfeeling, almost methodic tone backed by a lone piano playing chords and root notes, reflecting the idea that she is really trying to lose all sense of emotion to protect herself.

This begins to break down when she reaches the chorus, however. Her tone becomes more varied and emotional when she sings “God knows I tried to feel,” along with bringing drums into the instrumental track. She then adds “happy for you,” making it sound almost as though she’s trying to convince herself of it. As she continues, she says that she doesn’t understand why her love wasn’t returned, but that she’ll bear the pain despite and be “happy for you.” While her voice still has a slightly stiff feeling in the chorus, the music begins to vary more and the piano plays a melody along with Demi’s voice.

During the second verse Demi returns to her emotionless tone for the first half. At the second “stone cold” line her voice breaks a little, and she jumps into the high harmony as violins join the ensemble. This brings a big emphasis onto the next line: “I was your amber, but now she’s your shade of gold.” She reveals that this new love has caused her to feel almost less-than. As she reenters the chorus, a choir sings with her, furthering the emotional charge of the song. The stiffness present earlier in the song is almost completely removed at this point, making this chorus sound almost as though she were pleading with her crush to explain why she was rejected.

As the bridge begins, all music but the piano is cut while Demi sings “don’t want to be stone cold.” The hard shell that she’d made wasn’t enough to protect her from the pain; all it did was keep out the happiness. The full ensemble rushes in and the background completely fills with sound as Demi belts out a goodbye, giving the impression she’s leaving because she can no longer take the pain of rejection. The final chorus of the song is sung at full volume and emotion: vibrato, harmony, and pitch shift now fully present. She repeats the line “if happy is her” twice, letting the music vocals reach a crescendo before cutting all sound and whispering a quiet “happy for you.” This adds a major emotional attachment and creates a feeling of heart-wrenching pain in her farewell, made only more prominent by her sudden but quiet shift to a feeling of longing at the end.

              On the other hand, “Jar of Hearts” makes the opposite claim: that those we love bear the pain of the heartache they cause. She emphasizes this by contrasting her first verse and chorus. The song opens with a piano dramatically playing chords and roots behind her vocals, adding a small melody here or there. Her first lines are, “I know I can’t take one more step towards you/ ‘cause all that’s waiting is regret.” She knows that if she lets herself fall for her old love again, the only thing she’ll do is hurt herself further. Her next line contains the phrase “You lost the love I loved the most.” He was once precious to her, but she has since lost the love she held for him.

              It is with a slight change in tone and the addition of violins that Perri begins to move into the chorus. First, she sang with a curt and regretful tone in a lower, almost hesitant pitch. When she enters the prechorus, her voice gains slightly more tonal movement and moves into a higher pitch. She says that she’s had to “live half alive” since she was with her ex. She doesn’t say exactly what he did to her, but it was enough to affect her deeply – to the point that it has permanently made her feel life feel empty, as if she were living life with the good half missing. She then tells him that he “wants [her] one more time.” Her voice is almost accusing as she says it, wording it in such a way as to make it difficult to tell whether she’s giving a statement or asking a question.

              The chorus is where the real contrast begins. It seems to begin with a key change, and her voice changes from an unsure or accusatory voice to one of tentative defiance that grows stronger as she sings. She opens with the question “who do you think you are,”  before going into a short list claims that essentially calls her old love a coldhearted man who does nothing but bring pain wherever he goes. As she concludes her tirade she tells him “don’t come back for me,” before repeating her opening question and letting the background music drop down to the original key.

              The second verse is much stronger than previously in the song, emphasized by including a range of stringed instruments and subtle harmonies. Perri’s voice is much more confident and energized, while still retaining the curt tone of the first verse. Her first lines summarize that she knows her ex has been searching for her for some time. As she begins her response, a high violin plays the vocal melody and her voice is complemented by a harmony, emphasizing the next line: “But I have grown too strong / to ever fall back in your arms.” This creates a buildup and separates this lyric from the rest. It her telling him that no matter what he does, she won’t risk being hurt by him again.

              The music and vocals continue to hold their full range and intensity as Perri once again enters the prechorus. No longer is there any hesitation or reservation; her voice is full of incredulity at his attempt to regain her, and she holds a slightly stronger feeling of accusation as she sings the phrases “half alive” and “one more time.” Moving into the chorus, her harmony rejoins her as she repeats her accusations and question, “who do you think you are?” Her voice is fully accusatory at this point, and it feels as though she’s trying to hold back her emotions from flooding out as she sings.

              Going into the bridge, all music cuts out except for the piano. As it plays a bright but sad riff in a new key, Perri sings along with it. She sings of how it took her so long to recover from him, how she forgot how to be happy. As the violins make their dramatic return she expresses how much she regrets falling in love with him because in the end he only ever hurt her. The music changes from its earlier dynamic and begins to darkly shift back-and-forth between two chords as Perri finishes her bridge with a disgusted “and now you’re back.” The music drops a half-step into a minor and she flat out tells him “you don’t get to get me back.”

              In the last portion of the song, the darker sound of the bridge suddenly lifts into the light, full sound of the chorus. A choir sings harmonic tones in the background as Perri repeats her questions and accusations twice more. Her voice is even more emotionally charged than before, varying widely from the original melody and moving into alternate harmonies throughout the final chorus. She changes the last line of the chorus in both instances from “who do you think you are” to “don’t come back at all.” This settles the matter once and for all, and is a firm and final rejection of the love her ex has for her. It was his fault, and he can shoulder all the blame on himself because she refuses to give him a second chance after the pain he caused her. After that, she ends the song with multiple repetitions of “who do you think you are,” each one softer and quieter than the last, until it is finally just Perri and the piano, after which the piano plays  a short set of notes before resolving the song.

              Both Demi Lovato’s “Stone Cold” and Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” deal with the same issue; they ask the question of “who is responsible for bearing the pain of heartache.” Though while they may deal with the same issue, they come from different perspectives which result in vastly different conclusions. “Stone Cold” makes the claim that it is the lover who must burden the pain in order to save those we love from hurting. “Jar of Hearts” argues that it’s whoever caused the pain in the first place: they started it, they can deal with it. Both fit their perspectives and are entirely valid ways of looking at the issue. Those who find themselves in heartbreak may align with either or neither side, but they still have to suffer through the pain. It is up to them whether they will shoulder it alone, or push it all onto someone else.