Black Hearted Love

I personally think its about a woman whose in love with a man who uses her for sex, but she loves him and enjoys thinking even for fleeting moments that he has mutual feelings. "i volunteer my soul for murder" ... i interpret as her knowing and acknowledging that he is gonna break her into pieces. but she can't stop. "i'd like to take you to a place i know, my blackhearted" meaning she'd like him to experience how she feels it has the sound of a woman obsessed.

I don't think its so much about "obsession". It could also be about realizing a fantasy of something or someone who has always been just be a fantasy, the black hearted love that you are fatally attracted to.

"When you call out my name in rapture I volunteer my soul for murder"

the inevitability of the harm. she is okay with knowing he makes her give up complete control (if even just for that brief moment). She knows she is helpless to all that he embodies (the "dark" one who will never be good for her, but she's come to terms with it). He'll actually lurk around in her mind from the past and she'll wonder, occasionally seeing him "in the shadows". He's the black hearted one, but her being able to "take you to a place" means she is aware of things he is not and has just as many secrets to show him, so perhaps they are on an equal level.

but yes, fatal love.

I do not believe "Black Hearted Love" to be about a woman relating to a particular man. This song is about a woman's relationship with her daemon - her "lover within". The piece has a very private and almost supernatural feel to it. The video exemplifies this - There is no man present - it is Polly alone, on a bouncy castle, in the middle of a wood, in a manner of ecstasy.

This song represents to me a woman on the losing side of a romantic power exchange, where she may have hoped for or been deceived into thinking she held more value to her black-hearted lover. She becomes obsessed and desperate to reconcile or balance the power so she takes any crumb he throws at her. She dreams and fantasizes of changing him but its futile. It's sad I lived it!

Agreed with LittleFolkieGirl...it's definitely not completely one-sided - "you call out my name in rapture" etc but it definitely seems she's way more into him than he to her and he's using her for sex, yep, definitely.

Great song, loving the new album. Can't believe she's almost 40!

I don’t think she is singing about a person. I think she is singing about being reconnected with an aspect of herself which she was previously cut off from (the shadow self - she refers to shadow in the song). This part was buried under grief (hence the black heart and in the rain). If you work through grief you can feel joy again hence the video and the garden reference.

[Edit: More info]

wow wow wow

a little help with this one please?

she's a women obsessed. She is following him, watching him, and it makes her excited. It excites her to lust for a man, a man who she wouldn't normally lust after.

Sounds like some dangerous sex games.