Jar of Hearts

In this song, Christina Perri looks to distance herself from a guy who is worse than a heartbreaker - he's a heart collector, keeping them in a (metaphorical) jar and tearing love apart. She wrote the lyric about a serial heart collector she once dated. On her blog, she told the story behind the tune: "I wrote the song after I went home to Philadelphia for the holiday last December [2009]. I sat in my childhood bedroom and hid from the boy (with the jar of hearts) who wanted to see me. My heart wanted to see him, my head knew better."

"Jar Of Hearts" was Christina Perri's first single, released in 2010 about 10 months before it appeared on her debut album, Lovestrong. Perri moved to Los Angeles from Philadelphia with one suitcase and a guitar. She was hoping to follow in the footsteps of her older, musician brother Nick Perri, the former lead guitarist of Shinedown. Her breakthrough came when "Jar Of Hearts" featured on the June 30, 2010 episode of the nationwide televised dance competition So You Think You Can Dance before it was even released. Billy Bell and Kathryn McCormick danced to the song on the show in a routine choreographed by Stacey Tookey. The routine and the song got a great reaction from viewers, so the track was rushed onto iTunes, where it immediately landed at #20 on the overall chart. It was gradually added to radio playlists, and on September 13, 2010, the video landed on YouTube. The song made a slow climb up the charts, reaching #17 in the US on March 19, 2011.

Perri learned about the song's placement on So You Think You Can Dance, following a particularly grueling shift at a Café in Beverly Hills, one that had her daydreaming about dramatic ways to cease employment. "I was being yelled at all day," she said. "I got into my car and I wasn't 100 feet from the café when I got the call. I screamed. Then I cried. Then I called my mom."