There are some songs that you play because you enjoy playing them.
Then there are songs that become something much more personal.
Hero is one of those songs that falls deeply into that second category for me.
When I first recorded it, it hadn't even crossed my mind to release it to the world. I wasn’t thinking about streaming platforms, music videos, or whether anyone else would ever hear it beyond myself and my recording engineer.
I recorded it for myself.
I recorded it in memory of someone incredibly important to me - Samantha.
Losing Sam was a life-changing moment for me all those years ago, but music was the main way I found myself processing all of my emotions - both around losing Samantha as well as life in general. There were things I couldn’t necessarily put into words, but music was able to fill those gaps for me. And it still fills those gaps for me today.
Hero was also her favourite song, and every opportunity we had, we’d go to a beach or a park with a guitar and I’d play while she sang along. At the time, those were just moments of us having fun. Today? They’re memories that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
Hero was also the last song that we played and sang along to together.
One of my ways of keeping her spirit alive was to record the rhythm of the song as normal, but also to play the melody on the guitar too. That way, I can hear the melody and her voice in my head, while at the same time not taking those lyrics out of her mouth.
There’s another part of this release that carries a lot of meaning to me as well - the cover artwork. It’s just a photo of me sitting on a bench at the beach, but with the shadow of someone resting their head on my shoulder drawn into the image - that shadow representing Sam. Sadly, she isn’t physically there anymore, but that image represents how I still carry those memories with me. Just like the guitar melody allows me to imagine her singing alongside me again, the cover artwork is my way of having her still sitting by my side today.
In hindsight, there’s also something about the message of the song - being there for someone, wanting to protect them, wanting to be someone they can rely on - that resonated with how I felt about Sam.
At the time, I wasn’t trying to make a perfect recording. I wasn’t trying to make something that would eventually become my first release.
I just wanted to have something that was mine. Something I could listen to. Something that reminded me of her.
And then, somewhere along the way, that recording became something more.
As I started taking music more seriously, I listened back to it and wondered whether perhaps it could mean something to someone else too.
That was when the idea of releasing it began to take shape.
There’s something slightly strange about taking something that was originally so private and putting it out into the world. A recording that started as something just for me is now something that other people can hear.
But perhaps that’s one of the beautiful things about music.
We can write or record something because it means something to us, and then someone else can hear it and find their own meaning in it. And since I released the music video, I've heard from a number of people about how it has resonated with them and reminded them of someone they've lost in their own lives too.
So while Hero is now part of the beginning of my journey as a musician, it will always be something more personal to me than simply another song I’ve recorded.
It started as a tribute.
It started with Sam.
And I’m grateful that I eventually found the courage to share it.
If you’ve listened to my version of Hero, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
I hope you enjoy it. But more importantly, I hope you can hear the meaning behind my recording of it.
— Nathan