Songs Never Heard
A craft podcast that spotlights some of the best songs you've never heard.
Songs Never Heard
S2E2: Everything Moves (Matty Twigg)
A cosmic perspective on heartbreak, twenty years in the making.
Everything Moves on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7C95JaD6X3anCZ14etUWUT
More of Matty’s music:
ROBERT HOWELL:
My name is Robert Howell, and in this series I share, and dig into, some of my favorite songs that I've come across while in and exploring the underground songwriting scene. Songs written by talented people who are creating music that deserves wider recognition. Songs that, unfortunately, most of the world may never hear.
Welcome to "Songs Never Heard."
This episode's song carries a profound philosophical truth its writer held for two decades. Finally completed when a songwriting challenge unlocked the rest.
Let's hear "Everything Moves" by Matty Twigg.
MATTY TWIGG:
I took a flight of fancy that night
I met you and it carried me through
Into your arms I was willfully charmed
And from everything else I withdrew
And the world fell around me
As the truth was revealed
Time would advance spent with you in a trance
Inseparable, or so it would seem
I was struck with the bite, heard you talking that night
In a place where I shouldn’t have been
And the world fell around me
As the truth was revealed
Everything moves at incredible speed
Everything changes with time
Everything falls in times of need
And everything must follow true
Everything changes, Even You
Told all your friends it was me in the end
As you tore down everything we had been
But looking back now lord i’m thankful for how
My eavesdropping, in fact set me free
And the world fell around me
As the truth was revealed
Everything moves at incredible speed
Everything changes with time
Everything falls in times of need
And everything must follow true
Everything changes, Even You
ROBERT HOWELL:
The emotional core of "Everything Moves" isn't the story of the breakup itself, but the recovery that followed. Matty actually wrote the chorus decades before the rest of the song , carrying it like a quiet philosophy.
It came to him during a moment of acute crisis. Right after a long-term relationship had torn apart.
MATTY TWIGG:
I was very upset. And uh, one night I went to see some friends. We watched movies. They consoled me. But it was on the walk home, a cold brisk night, and the stars were shining bright. A clear sky. It was a few miles, but on the way, I looked up at the stars and in a strange moment, I had this, uh, realization of how my troubles were insignificant in the face of such wonder and majesty.
ROBERT HOWELL:
In that moment, looking up at the cosmos, the chorus arrived in his head, almost like a mantra, a profound acceptance that his personal crisis was just a small part of a universal pattern. The rhythm of the universe helped him move on.
It's not cynical. It's Matty embracing the simple truth of impermanence, that all things must move, change, and eventually fall away, to elevate his mind above the immediate hardship. It became his means to overcome the pain.
The verses were the last piece of the puzzle arriving only when Matty was prompted to write for a Twitch music stream challenge. The word he was given was "eavesdropping."
That word connected to something real. Matty had stumbled upon a conversation he wasn't supposed to hear. One that revealed a painful truth about a relationship. The eavesdropping became the story. The chorus he'd been carrying for years fit perfectly with this new narrative, and he stitched the two together.
The prompt gave him the final framing device he needed. The song starts at a romantic peak, a flight of fancy, so it has somewhere to fall from.
The word ‘willfully’ is an intentional signal. It indicates the narrator already knew, on some level, that this relationship was ill-fated, but chose to proceed anyway. It was a conscious submission to the feeling.
MATTY TWIGG:
There's a quiet admission in that line. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be taken in because it feels good. 'cause we want to believe. But all the while perhaps knowing better.
ROBERT HOWELL:
Matty uses a very clever, lyrical device to mark this descent. The phrase "And the world fell around me, as the truth was revealed," appears multiple times, but the context shifts entirely as the song progresses. At the start. It feels hopeful. The world is falling away because love is the only thing that matters. But by the final verse, the meaning has rotted from the inside out.
That philosophical core needed a musical structure that could hold both the soaring perspective and the spiraling descent of a relationship. It was a structure built for emotional vulnerability. Something Matty cites in the work of songwriters like Damien Rice and Glenn Hansard. Artists whose emotional honesty runs through the DNA of this track.
To embody the song's core theme of inevitable change, Matty leaned into a specific rhythm. A shuffling three-four time signature.
There's a distinct circular motion to it. Matty describes it as a fractured waltz. Something that imitates the narrator's emotional state, but also mimics the inevitable forward progression of time. The rhythmic choice serves as the constant underpinning that the mantra describes.
The production starts with a solid foundation. Acoustic guitar, piano, bass, and a steady drum kit. This acts as the unshakeable truth. The machine quietly running in the background, indifferent to the personal drama unfolding in the lyrics.
The arrangement gradually increases in complexity as the narrative descends. Strings arrive subtly in the first pre chorus and then build along with the drum track as we hit the chorus. This slow build that continues throughout the song mirrors the story's own progression from a simple flight of fancy into a more layered complex truth.
Even with the mantra and the perspective of the stars, There's one line in the chorus that crashes the acceptance back down to earth with a profound shock. "Even you." You can clearly hear the emotion in Matty's voice when he delivers those two words. A mixture of disbelief and deep aching hurt.
MATTY TWIGG:
That moment contains all the shock. The betrayal, and reluctant acceptance. That I elevated that person and they weren't really what I thought. They changed. We switched back from the lofty flight to the anguish that she had also changed. At least from my perspective.
ROBERT HOWELL:
While the chorus is about universal change, this is a personal moment where the narrator is forced to accept that the person he naively hoped was exempt from that law is in fact subject to it. After this line, the instrumentation continues, but the vocals stop for a long contemplative stretch. Over 10 seconds before the next verse begins.
This is the sound of the narrator, swallowing that profound truth, forcing himself back down to earth before he can continue the story. It's a powerful moment of silence in a world of constant motion.
Matty handled the production himself, and while the track came together quickly, he spent the most time perfecting the strings. He played each section on a MIDI keyboard, primarily using virtual cellos. He felt the cello carried a specific emotional intelligence that the song required.
Those swelling strings in the final choruses aren't just padding. They're there to mark the passage of time. They underscore that flow of nature that continues forward regardless of our personal heartbreak. It's a fitting philosophy for a musician who has cycled across multiple countries. Matty's music is steeped in the understanding that you learn the most about yourself when you're in , The constant evolution. The trials and adversity that shape who you become.
Matty doesn't revisit his songs much after producing them. He doesn't go back to make changes. The imperfections become part of the work. This isn't laziness. It's the same acceptance that runs through "Everything Moves" itself.
The song sat incomplete for two decades before the verses arrived during that Twitch challenge. And when it finally emerged, complete and vulnerable, it became his most popular track.
When I asked Matty why he thought listeners connected with this song more than his others, he pointed to that vulnerability.
MATTY TWIGG:
I guess that writing about emotional and... and true events, in a vulnerable way, has a better way of connecting, I think.
ROBERT HOWELL:
It's that universal connection. We've all experienced that moment when the rug gets pulled out from under us in a relationship. The arc from infatuation to disillusionment told honestly and dramatically.
The song doesn't just describe this universal law of constant motion, it embodies the acceptance of it. Everything moves. Everything changes. And in the grand scheme of things, from the right perspective, it will all work out fine for everyone. Even you.
"Songs Never Heard" is created and produced by me, Robert Howell. It's a tribute to all the seldom heard music that, in my opinion, rivals what you'd hear on the popular charts.
Until next time, keep writing.