Tweed’s single “Heron” follows the journey of a bird flying into the next season, or chapter of life. The Auckland folk band’s slow, rhythmic song set to grounding guitar changes mimics the feel of the heron soaring free in the air, while still knowing where it’s from. As the lyrics written by the trio tell the story of the weather cooling as the seasons change from summer to fall, Tweed watches the heron as a guide for how to accept changes in life and keep moving forward naturally, even when the human desire to control the future comes into play.
Heron
I got my eye on you today
I am cooling down into the folds
Of this autumn bold
Fresh and bright and startlingly cold
While flying directly into a new season may be “startlingly cold” or lonely, the heron flies forward with no hesitation, accepting life and the future exactly for what it could possibly be. There may be rain ahead or a storm, yet the heron keeps pushing on because of natural instinct. This serves as a beautiful image, and a guide for those who struggle to predict the kind of future they will have in order to do the same.
Heron
I’ll keep my eye on you today
Watch you soar into the morn
Newly born and evolving into the day
I hear the change and feel the fall
The heron has no desire to resist change as it evolves fully into it, encouraging Tweed to also move naturally into the twists and turns and new seasons of life, showing us the reason they are so mesmerized with the heron in the first place.
We know this thrill comes calling
And we hear in stillness a winter waiting in the wings
Lonely bird, what secrets were you told?
Show me
Fell my illusion of control
The line “what secrets were you told?” seems to ask something further about how the bird instinctively knows what season they will move into, giving us more context to what the song is really about. Maybe “Heron” is about more than a bird being okay with the changing seasons of life, but more so about the ability to know intuitively and fearlessly when it’s time for the next chapter of life and to trust those instincts. The lines “fell my illusions of control” indicate that the narrator previously felt that they could control the next steps in life but don’t anymore, where the bird follows intuition, ready to fly into challenges or failures, trusting fully that moving forward no matter the outcome is still the best, right way, the true way of the natural world.
Heron
I’ll keep my eye on you today
You are sleek and stronger in shorter days
Soon gone, you’re moving on
As the song ends, the heron flies away from Tweed, leaving them on their own to “sense the change, and feel the fall.”
