Put My Heart Down

Album: Slow Me Down (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • The love that Sara Evans is singing about in this song is a toxic one. The Nashville songstress told Rolling Stone Country that she feels the message of this Nathan Chapman, Andrew Dorff and Liz Huett penned tune was an important addition to her Slow Me Down album. "She's being very smart and strong, recognizing a bad relationship and saying, 'Please leave me alone. Please walk away.' It's painful for her to say that, but she knows she needs to, which is not that common," said Evans. "I'm always drawn to songs where the woman is the victim, the one being hurt. But I like that this one is saying, 'Let's stop this while we're ahead.'"

    "So many people will stay in a bad relationship, even at the very beginning when they see warning signs, and they'll still pursue that relationship when they know it's not a good match," she continued. "How many divorces would not happen if people would recognize the warning signs early on? If the relationship is toxic, move on. There are a gazillion fish in the sea."
  • Sara Evans premiered the song on Nashville singing it as a duet with Will Chase, who plays Luke Wheeler on the hit show.
  • The song's music was shot in an historic mansion in Nashville and directed by Peter Zavadil. It features Evans surrounded by hundreds of lights. "It's to symbolize the light going off in her head," the singer explained. "It's her being smart and realizing exactly what the relationship is. It's not that she has 100 percent courage to do this. [She's saying], 'I'll walk away, and you walk away… but you first. Don't pursue me, because it's going to be hard for me to resist you.'"
  • Evans explained that what first attracted her to this tune was that it's a sad song with a happy melody. "I like the contradiction and I think it makes for a really interesting overall song," she said. "Peter [Zavadil] found a great way to bring that contradiction to the screen with the light bulbs and showing them eventually exploding. You have such beautiful and pretty scenes with the soft lighting and beautiful mansion, contradicted by the exploding bulbs. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out."

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