Sometimes it takes a single emotion to invoke a 3-minute song. And while love and its real-life tribulations account for many hit singles, JonPaul Wallace takes the pain of heartbreak on his latest single “Heartbeat” and creates a sound for the feeling someone encounters during old routines that were once shared with a partner.
Fresh off of a music makers bootcamp in Nashville, and a handful of performances in the Detroit area this year, Wallace is building momentum towards his career since his rendition of “7 Years” filmed at his high school graduation that went viral on YouTube in 2016. Just a month ago his single “Here We Go” played on a CBS March Madness basketball game, and now “Heartbeat,” the follow-up single to “Love’s Not For Everyone” has over 20k streams and its music video has 35k views a month after its release.
“Heartbeat”‘s music video flows between Wallace singing to the camera, hand on his heart, and a dancer, Natalie Gordon, that Wallace says represents the flow of the song and its subject dancing in and out of your head.
“I experienced this when I got out of a relationship. And just how when you're in a relationship for a long time and then you get out of it like everything in your day-to-day life changes. From waking up and not needing to be texting somebody, or going out with friends instead of going with that person, whatever it is,” explains Wallace. “And at the beginning it's just a tough adjustment where everything that does change and everything that is different kind of pulls you back into that, into those emotions and just reminds you of how it's different. So that's really what the song is about. And everything that you do that you're not doing alone, it pulls you back into that headspace. So that's what the song is about. And then the video kind of reflects that--you're performing and you're trying to be distracted. But the dancer who was a good friend of mine, Natalie Gordon, represents those lingering thoughts that keep showing up won't escape you.”
A song about heartbreak on the radio has been done before. But lyrically, Wallace shows that metaphors can go a long way and make the song stand out—the rhythm of the subject's heartbeat representing the rhythms in a relationship, and the ebbs and flows of moving on. It’s an anthem for everyone, both radio and club ready, and listeners will be dancing along to its emotional beat.
JonPaul Wallace’s next move is a 7-song EP set to be released this summer. For now, you can listen to “Heartbeat” on all streaming platforms.
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