DESCRIPTION:
Get music here: http://mikebmusic.bandcamp.com/track/heroine

Ballet footage owned by MSF Group/Vanya Volkov (Ballerina: Olga Kuraeva)
Animated footage is from "Destino" created by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney

Heroine (Track 7 from "One More Day") was inspired by the character Marion from Hubert Selby's novel "Requiem for a Dream" (and certainly Jennifer Connelly's depiction in Darren Aronofsky's adaption of the novel as well). As will be clear when you listen, I wrote the song as many smaller tunes that belong to one larger umbrella performance. I hoped to capture a sense of Marion's overall downward trajectory while pausing here and there to experience her fleeting moments of hopefulness mostly via heroin use. The video version here, allowed me to incorporate the ballet dancer I'd never have been able to make happen and the wild imagery of Salvador Dali and Walt Disney that I always found so fascinating.

Lyrics:
She walked in the room surrounded by eyes,
Despise, and lies, she smiles.
Original sin, the clothes she came in,
Slowly opening.

An angel no more, her back to the floor,
Time just crawling by.
A carousel ride. Defiling eyes.
Beneath her smile she cries,

"Can you save me?"
"Can you save me?"
"Can you save me?"

She was a victim of the night.
No one to say, "Baby sleep tight."
When a life starts falling down,
Can you hear it? Can you hear it?

Hero, in love,
Won't you take me, make me.
Feel my veins grow yearning.
On my knees, please, release me.

This time last year she felt things changing.
A whole new world inside her paintings.
Cuz' they planned on getting out.
They could do it. Nothing to it.

Hero, in love,
Spread your wings down, save me.
Take me up and away.
Higher, higher, higher.

Bang, bang, bang.
Three shots rang.
Living in dangerous waters.
She was living on the edge.
Trying to make a dime.
She said, "Better you than me."
Emptying his pockets on the street.

War's never over, there's just battles won.
Been going round and round in circles so long.
The plot is sickened with the enemy.
And now our hero's singing, "Misery loves company."
As starting over is a fantasy,
Her eyes grow deeper into dark and empty.
The pages turned become the lasting end.
So much for make-believe, we've been deceived,
She'll never be the queen.

Credits:
Words and Music: Michael Billingsley

Vocals and Trumpet: Michael Billingsley
Trombone: Jarred Antonacci
Sax: Michael Ford
Female Vocals: Meg Moyer-Herrmann
Guitars: Jason Herrmann
Upright Bass: Chris Slone
Drums: Rob Smith
Accordion: Rob Gardiner
Engineered, Mixed and Mastered by Dave Downham @ Gradwell House 2013.