Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
by Pink

Album: Beautiful Trauma (2017)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Here, Pink focuses on the resilience of marginalized individuals, as she sings about strength in the face of bigotry.

    There's not enough rope to tie me down
    There's not enough tape to shut this mouth
    The stones you throw can make me bleed
    But I won't stop until we're free
    And wild hearts can't be broken
  • Pink originally wrote the piano ballad for film Suffragette, a 2015 British historical period drama about the movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom during the 1910s. She explained in her Apple Music documentary On the Record.

    "The movie is about the suffragette movement, which is women's right to vote. You have to fight for what's rightly yours which is rights and respect and love and kindness and compassion and you have to be willing to die for it. These women were."
  • The song took on a fresh resonance following its release as a single in January 2018. Many interpreted it as an empowering anthem for women as part of the Time's Up and MeToo campaigns, which fight against sexual abuse and harassment.
  • Pink wrote the song with Busbee, an American songwriter, record producer and musician from the San Francisco Bay area. His other credits include Timbaland featuring Katy Perry's "If We Ever Meet Again," Rascal Flatts' "Summer Nights" and Florida Georgia Line's "H.O.L.Y."
  • Pink performed the song at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Her previous turn at the ceremony was a spectacular aerial acrobatic rendition of her tune "Try" in 2014. This time Pink ditched the theatrics and sang solo in her stocking feet, a simple white top and a pair of jeans. She was accompanied onstage by an American Sign Language interpreter.
  • Filmed entirely in black and white, the sparse music video finds Pink clad in a white tank top and jeans, not dissimilar from her casual Grammys getup. Her 6-year-old daughter, Willow, makes appearances throughout the clip. The video was directed by Sasha Samsonova, who went on to helm Ciara's "Greatest Love."
  • Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken is also the title of a 1991 live-action Disney movie starring Gabrielle Anwar as a runaway who becomes a horse diver in the circus during the Great Depression.
  • This appears on Pink's seventh studio album, Beautiful Trauma, which was nominated for Best Pop Vocal album at the Grammy Awards in 2019.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

George Clinton

George ClintonSongwriter Interviews

When you free your mind, your ass may follow, but you have to make sure someone else doesn't program it while it's wide open.

80s Music Quiz 1

80s Music Quiz 1Music Quiz

MTV, a popular TV theme song and Madonna all show up in this '80s music quiz.

Michael Bolton

Michael BoltonSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.

Todd Rundgren

Todd RundgrenSongwriter Interviews

Todd Rundgren explains why he avoids "Hello It's Me," and what it was like producing Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album.

Joan Armatrading

Joan ArmatradingSongwriter Interviews

The revered singer-songwriter talks inspiration and explains why she put a mahout in "Drop the Pilot."

Concert Disasters

Concert DisastersFact or Fiction

Ozzy biting a dove? Alice Cooper causing mayhem with a chicken? Creed so bad they were sued? See if you can spot the real concert mishaps.