 Twice Through the Heart lasts for approximately 30 minutes . It consists of nine musical numbers arranged in three sections . It is narrated by a woman in the prison cell where she has been sent for the murder of her husband . To express the woman 's feelings , Kay deliberately chose a voice that was unpoetic : " I wanted the voice to be so everyday , it would be banal . " Turnage 's music too includes similarly basic material , what critic Tom Service describes as " simple hummable tunes " , but these are transformed and distorted , a metaphor for how initial loving intimacy is destroyed and distorted by years of violence and abuse . Turnage 's musical language is modernist but influenced by jazz , an area of musical interest he shared with Kay . 
