My Cleveland Heart

This song has nothing to do with the city of Cleveland, Ohio. A "Cleveland Heart" is an artificial heart made and installed by the Cleveland Heart Institute, a renowned medical center. In the song, Browne wants a new heart because his old one keeps making the same mistakes over and over. If he can get a dispassionate mechanical device in his chest, he'll be able to move forward more rationally (this is all purely metaphorical, Browne's actual heart is just fine).

Browne got the idea for this song when he was driving in Cleveland with a friend, who pointed out the Cleveland Heart Institute and explained that they make artificial hearts. "Yeah, I need one of those," Browne thought.

I'm going to make a few changes right away The way I leap and the way I fall The way I need somebody else's eyes to see me The way I need anyone at all "We do need other people's eyes to see us," he said in a public broadcasting interview. "That's what's comical about the song: it's defiant. 'I don't need anybody.' It's like a Swiftian modest proposal: I'm just going to replace my heart with something that works because this one I've got has had it."