Danny O’Donoghue of The Script reveals the heartbreaking story behind the hit Breakeven

Danny O’Donoghue, the lead singer of The Script, has revealed the heartbreaking story behind the band’s hit “Breakeven”.

O’Donoghue created a TikTok video for the song over the weekend, saying it was actually the idea of ​​his bandmate Mark Sheehan.

Sheehan was a co-founder and lead guitarist of the famous Irish band. He died last year at the age of 46 after a short, unspecified illness.

His death was devastating for his bandmates, who released their first album without him in May. O’Donoghue, who continually pays tribute to his childhood friend, previously said he was “out of sorts” after the news.

However, he has started writing again and now posts often about Sheehan. In his latest video about Breakeven, he credited his fellow songwriter with the idea for the chart hit.

It also turns out that the song, released on the band’s first album in 2008, was partly inspired by the movie Love Actually.

“Breakeven was inspired by a romantic comedy. Mark and I had just finished the first album, called The Script, and were about to hand it in to the label,” O’Donoghue says in the video.

“But Mark came to me and said he had this idea for Breakeven, it’s a lyric: ‘Because when a heart breaks, it doesn’t always break even.’ And I just thought that was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard in my life.”

If you can’t see the video below, click here.

He continues, “So we were kind of working on the lines and trying to get them right, and I didn’t get it until I saw the movie ‘Love Actually.’ And there’s a part in the movie towards the end where a guy knocks on the girl’s door and says, ‘The best thing about me has always been you.'”

“And I just thought, wait a minute, this could be really good. So I went in and just wrote these lyrics for Breakeven: ‘What am I supposed to do when you’ve always been the best part of me?’

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“We were all in the studio and had this moment of enlightenment where all we could say was, ‘Well, I’m breaking down.’ And that’s kind of the story of how this song came about.”

Breakeven was released on November 24, 2008 as the third single from The Script’s debut album, and peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 10 in Ireland, number 21 in the UK, number 12 in the US and number 3 in Australia.

Today it is one of the top songs by The Script, who have become one of the biggest Irish rock bands in recent decades.

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