Heartfelt music speaks to the soul and touches the corners of our hearts that are hard to reach. In this new music column Songs for the Soul, you will discover music, artists, and the stories behind and within great heartfelt songs. We begin the journey with a poetic love song telling the story of love through thick and thin. This song is titled “Persuasion.”

“Persuasion” was originally an instrumental song for the film Sweet Talker (1991) and was written by musicians Richard Thompson, Tim Finn, and Peter Filluel. The acoustic guitars paint a melody that undeniably invites one below the surface and into deep feeling. In the movie, the song is played during scenic moments when a lonely con man and a boy without a father are bonding while fishing on the beach.

The melody perfectly captures the paradox of love with its beauty and its grief, but always keeps you feeling hopeful. Finn must have felt something similar when he decided to write lyrics to the song and release it as a single in 1993.

While Finn’s single rocks, my heart was stolen by Thompson and his son Teddy Thompson’s version released in 1998. These gentlemen, each with an acoustic guitar in hand, bless us with their unique and emotional vocals as the story is told over embellished fingerpicking and a simple R&B-esque drum rhythm.

Lyrically, “Persuasion” is poetic, alluding to emotional complexity and passion. “You and I, tempted by the promise of a different life, time has fled, there’s a constant battle running through my head.”

The song suggests a complicated moment in a relationship, where both a deep love is being challenged and “the promise of a different life,” perhaps with a different lover, are held simultaneously. Again this matches that paradoxical sense of love that was present in the instrumental version.

The chorus drives the story along as history is revealed and personal conviction is established. “After all the foolish things that we’ve been through, I can always make a start on something new, and I’ll always be a man who’s open to.....persuasion.”

This song has me believing that persuasion in the context of love is an openness, an open door built of conviction leading straight to the heart. “I still believe it” is repeated throughout this song, emphasizing deep faith in a person and the shared love. The bridge further articulates this conviction with “...it’s written in my heart, so that everybody can see it, and it’s written in my soul, after all I still believe it.”

Performed by Richard and Teddy Thompson, this song always leaves me feeling comforted by a sensitive masculine heartfelt passion that makes me want to grow stronger in the face of challenges in my relationships and cherish my convictions in love.

Listen to “Persuasion” on the Richard Thompson compilation album released by Capitol Records in 2001 titled Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years.

You can find this album on Amazon music by following this link: https://www.amazon.com/Action- Packed-Best-Capitol-Years/dp/B00005A9KU.