Songfacts®:

• Phillips wrote this song with R.E.M. for Die Hard: With a Vengeance (the 1995 film, the third in the series, also marked the singer's acting debut - ironically, as a mute terrorist). Director John McTiernan had a different vision for the end titles song, though, and it was scrapped. Phillips remembered in a Songfacts interview: "They wanted something more military for the end, it turned out, so they did an instrumental version of 'Johnny Comes Marching Home,' which was kind of odd, but I was very excited to be able to collaborate with those guys and write 'Slapstick Heart.'"
  
  After the song was rejected for the film, Phillips included it on her album Omnipop (It's Only a Flesh Wound Lambchop), which was produced by her then-husband, T Bone Burnett.
• Slapstick comedy is like The Three Stooges, not subtle and obviously played for laughs. In this song, Sam Phillips has a slapstick heart, so tragic it's comic. She's totally obsessed with a guy even though he's clearly not right for her.