Category: Music

Categories
Female Lead Music Religion

The Top 5 Unheard

1.Oslo by De Joie
De Joie really captures the joy of thriving where you belong. Listening to this song put a smile on my face and I hope it will do the same for you.
written by Dallas Fluegel
2.Disclosure by The Silent Critics
When I first heard The Silent Critics I was hooked. The music and lyrics were interesting, but the vocals were breathtaking.

written by Dallas Fluegel
3.If Only You Knew by An Atlas To Follow
An Atlas To Follow is a magical song that you will not regret listening to. Get yourself into your best music environment and enjoy the music.
written by Dallas Fluegel
4.Alaye by JKS Sundar, JKA Shalini
Our only foreign language song (so far) is made for U.S. radio. If you like the current EDM trend you’re going to want to hear this.
written by Dallas Fluegel
5.You Are Mighty by Melonie Caudle
This song truly captures how amazing and mighty God is. His unfailing love are things that we all need to be reminded of on a daily basis. I hope you get as much from this song as I do.
written by Shaina Hawkins

You can go directly to our Top 5 playlist on Spotify or YouTube.

Categories
Music Tennessee

Unheard Knoxville, Tennessee Music

If Only You Knew by An Atlas To Follow

In 2012 An Atlas To Follow released Golden Sun, a six track EP, and toured through 2014. Since then their website has become entirely Chinese and they haven’t posted on Facebook one time. This Knoxville, Tennessee modern indie folk band consisted of Thomas Smith (lead singer), Zac Smith, Amanda Kinney, & Josh Jones. Currently An Atlas To Follow has 6,053 monthly Spotify listeners making them an excellent candidate for our Artist Spotlight.

An Atlas To follow slowly formed into a four piece band over the years of 2009 and 2010. Thomas and Amanda met and discovered each other in a study abroad program in 2009 and started singing together shortly thereafter. Golden Sun was An Atlas To Follow’s only album, although they did release an album under another name in 2010, Suite C.

The first track on the Golden Sun album to catch my ear was Be Kind To Boston. I loved the harmonies and how the song builds up. However, after I dived into the album a new favorite quickly emerged. Enjoy the second track from the Golden Sun album If Only You Knew by An Atlas to Follow. Find lyrics and the meaning below.

Lyrics (Corrected from songlyrics.com)

Let me tell you dear,
I know I said it’s just a story
But the truth is
I write words to form a crutch
to help me get by
It wasn’t my intention to leave
you out in the cold
I wrote this all down and I put it in a song
Cause I found that my words fail me
When I need them most
I’ve got a way with words
But I’m not sure it’s the good kind
Cause I let them get away from me
And I just hope that you’ll find
That your name is hidden somewhere
Deep between most of them

Bah-di-dah-dah…..

I once had a mind to let this run its course
But the wind and the rain had their way with us
Cause something deep inside me said I had to learn the hard way
I’m scared of being alone, but I’m scared to look you in the eyes
And ask you if you’d like to dance with me
Because I’ll make a fool of myself
These words are nothing more than pebbles thrown
In desperation at your window pane
Just hoping that the rhythmic sound
will help you sleep tonight

If only you knew
If only you knew
If only you knew
If only you knew
If only you knew
If only you knew

Bah-di-dah-dah…..

If only you knew
If only you knew
And if only you knew
If only you knew

Bah-di-dah-dah…..

Meaning

I really really like this song. There’s something magical in the bah-di-dahs. It feels like its taking me somewhere. It makes me close my eyes and smile.

I really like to dive into the meaning of a song’s lyrics, but I love it when it artists tells us (most of the time) what the song is actually about. In an interview, An Atlas To Follow expanded on the meaning of the album and what each song meant to the writer.

“Golden Sun” has a lot to do with unrequited love, or rather, unrequited feelings, with the two bright spots on the EP being Call this Home and the title track. Louisiana was born from the frustration of still carrying around the weight of regrets and remorse from a failed relationship. Really it wasn’t a relationship at all; I was just very emotionally involved. The song does it’s best to say without saying that I was tired. Tired of having her in the back of my head every other day. Tired of not being able to move forward due to the delusional hope that something where I was might change for the better. Be Kind to Boston, If Only You Knew and Too Late to Say I Love You all come from the same situation where I had some very strong feelings toward a certain someone but knew that they weren’t shared. If you listen to them in the order listed earlier you can see the thematic arc of the “situation”: from hope to desire to desperation to loss. It all worked out in the end though, she changed her mind… and that album is in the works.”

I love happy endings! I hope y’all did too.

You can find An Atlas To Follow on Facebook, Spotify, or Youtube. You can purchase their album on iTunes or through Amazon. A large portion of this post was taken from an Interview found on sonicbids.com.

Categories
Female Lead Music Tennessee

What Does Home Mean?

Oslo by De Joie

De Joie is singer/songwriter Kaley Rutledge. Her 7,780 monthly Spotify listeners makes her (by far) the most popular artist we have spotlighted so far. In De Joie’s first album she grapples with the idea of home. Kaley lives in Nashville, but she really found a sense home in her travels to Western Europe. These places impacted her so much that when she got back to the States she made an album of four songs, a song for each city she visited.

Oslo is the first song on De Joie’s album August and is my personal favorite. She mixes vox, strings, and synths to give this song a healing presence. In Olso, De Joie really captures the joy of thriving where you belong. Listening to this song put a smile on my face and I hope it will do the same for you. Lyrics and Analysis below.

Lyrics to Oslo by De Joie (courtesy of jiosaavn)

Can you hear me say “I love you” from across the sea?
Can you hear me whisper to you my dreams?
Well, the weather is fine here in Oslo
We’re about to jump on a plane to the west coast

There’s a view we can’t miss
I wouldn’t dream of it
There’s a view we can’t miss
I wouldn’t dream of it

I was born to be wild and free
Traipsing the coast line of some craggy beach
Go on and tell ’em I’m in good company
Wild and free

Can you hear me say, “I love you” from theses far way places?
All these wide open spaces seem to heal me

There’s a view we can’t miss
I wouldn’t dream of it
There’s a view we can’t miss
I wouldn’t dream of it

I was born to be wild and free
Traipsing the coast line of some craggy beach
Go on and tell ’em I’m in good company
Wild and free

DIVING DEEP

The concept of home has been something that I have thought a lot about over the last decade. It’s not just a physical space; instead it’s a near mythical land with powers to heal. Home is a place of recovery, our very own ICU that each of retreat to every day. This is an insane concept, but equally peculiar is that each of us rehab at our own unique center. How crazy is that!? Every one of us returns to our own distinct location for the same thing. Healing.

Kaley of De Joie does a fantastic job of exploring the concept of home. In the song Oslo we see two different homes. The first home is filled with the people she loves, but it is lacking. She has left it in search for something – Can you hear me say “I love you” from across the sea? Can you hear me whisper to you my dreams? We’re about to jump on a plane to the west coast. The second home is Oslo, which is also filled with people she loves, AND is a place where she finds healing – Well, the weather is fine here in Oslo. Go on and tell ’em I’m in good company. All these wide open spaces seem to heal me.

I really love how Kaley responds to the healing she receives when she finds home: She realizes she was born to be wild and free. This idea seems counterintuitive to me because before finding this new home Kaley was a wanderer, searching for home.. One could say that she was free to roam and be wild, but she did not feel that way.

However, when Kaley finds home, even though she is now tethered to a place (Oslo), she proclaims herself wild and free. How can we make sense of this?

It’s as if belonging to something or someone brings freedom while total independence produces turmoil. This is a thought worth sitting in, and for that I thank De Joie!

What do you think about home? What does home mean to you?

Sources
https://dejoiemusic.com/bio
https://www.jiosaavn.com/lyrics/oslo-lyrics/RwxYdhUIQ1A
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5oJYqPFbjnOksOFe7uOx9G?si=lU9yJgeQTVutw5Y2q_AR7A

Categories
Music UPDATED

Things Could Have Gone Better

updated 5/25/20 after a pleasant email exchange with The Silent Critics’ Ryan Coughter. He provided the actual lyrics and the meaning behind the song. Original post in black.

Disclosure by The Silent Critics

The Artist Spotlight on The Silent Critics was the first spotlight I did for The Unheard. I’m a big fan of their album Chemical Avalanches and Toxic Romances, which is one of the reasons I was super pumped to receive a message from Ryan Coughter of The Silent Critics shortly after our website went live. Ryan was super gracious and kind, and I came away from our conversation encouraged about The Unheard.

Ryan gave me two things I would like to share with you. First, he gave me the exact right words to “Disclosure,” which have now been incorporated into the original post below. The second thing he gave me was the meaning of “Disclosure.” Enjoy.

What is the meaning of the song Disclosure?

Liam and I wrote this song together many years ago.  I wrote the music and most of the lyrics but Liam definitely helped out as well! … The song has a couple different meanings but generally the main feeling behind the song was that my girlfriend and I broke up.  My roommate, who was Liam at the time, was in a great and loving relationship.  I admired it, but I wasn’t ready to have that again, I was more interested in a one or five night dance.  I think you can figure out what [that] means!  haha.

~ Ryan Coughter, The Silent Critics

Indeed we can. haha. Thank you so much Ryan and The Silent Critics for reaching out to us. I wish them the best of luck going forward. You can find their album on iTunes or Amazon. If you like their music you’ll be excited to find out that Ryan told me they are planning to come out with their next album this year.

THE ORIGINAL POST (with corrected lyrics)

The Silent Critics is a D.C. band founded by Liam Garland & Ryan Coughter who started working together in college as a class project. Pleased by their chemistry they started playing gigs in the area and even entered and won contest for their songs. Their sound consists of pleasing melodies and stunning vocals.

When I first heard The Silent Critics I was in college sitting behind a mic as a very green DJ (probably terrified I would mess the broadcast up), and I was hooked. The music was good, the lyrics were interesting, but the vocals were breathtaking. I thought it was just a matter of time before these guys were household names…

I was wrong… as I often am. However, the music these guys made has stuck in my head, and I have carried them with me in the years that have passed. Now it is my pleasure to share them with you. (Lyrics Below)

Lyrics to Disclosure by The Silent Critics

(Yeah) I’ve had it once or twice
the second better than the first
things went awry you went away
now I’m not ready to try
try anything more than a one or five night dance
but to have it again would feel unreal
just a taste, a kiss, a touch with that passion
that you see every day like a movie script theme

Don’t want to leave your sight theme
Don’t want to sleep by myself theme
Don’t want to leave like this
I will do anything, I’ll say anything

And I won’t let you down.
No, I won’t let you down.
And I hope to God that I find you
here when you’re around
No, I won’t let you down.

What I take away from this is
that I was in naïve bliss
I never tried to hide it or fight the fact
that I was forcing the feelings
you simply didn’t have for me

You needed time away from me
You said you needed some room to breathe
We can’t waste love like this
I’ll do anything, I’ll say anything

And I won’t let you down.
No, I won’t let you down.
And I hope to God that I find you
here when you’re around
No, I won’t let you down.

Yeah we’re falling to pieces but I’ll pick you up
The late night talking about what’s to come
Well, the details are hazy but I understand
No, you won’t be second best
No, you won’t be second best, cuz

Don’t want to leave your sight theme
Don’t want to sleep by myself theme
Don’t want to leave like this
I will do anything, I’ll say anything

I’ve had it once or twice
the second better than the first
it went awry you went away
now I’m not ready to try
anything more than a one or five night dance

I’ve had it once or twice
the second better than the first
things went awry you went away
now I’m not ready to try
anything more than a one or five night dance

Oh, to me that five night dance sounds perfect
oh perfect

I’m not sure how a band like The Silent Critics slips through the cracks, but if you liked this song you should check out their YouTube Channel where they cover songs like Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

I hope y’all enjoyed this new song and the probably brand new-to-you band. If you love it I hope you share it with your family and friends.

Categories
California Music

This Is A Song of Increasing Intimacy

I Can Feel Your Heartbeat (featuring Jordan Frye) by A New Normal

A New Normal is a southern California band lead by Justin H. Wright. Justin describes A New Normal’s music as cinematic electronic, but the song ‘I Can Feel Your Heartbeat’ sounds more like a pop/rock anthem to me. Currently A New Normal is sitting at 2,170 monthly listeners making it a great candidate for our spotlight.

This song is split into two distinct parts. The first part gives you a low deep voice with the persistent bass drum and bass riff. The second part transforms you to a new scene; you’re at a party and everyone knows the words to the song. It’s actually kinda neat because it gives the song a sense of community.

LYRICS

Saw the fire in her eyes
I could hear her heartbeat
Felt the sunlight on my skin
As she laid beside me

Saw the heavens open up
As it rained down on me
Can’t remember what she said
But I could hear her heartbeat

I could hear her heartbeat (x4)

See the storm clouds up ahead
Say the words “I miss you”
I can’t remember what you said
But I could feel your heartbeat

Hear the heavens open up
As she laid beside me
See the fire in her eyes
I can feel your heartbeat

I can feel your heartbeat (x2)

In A New Normal’s bio on Spotify it says, “Every composition released by A New Normal is carefully crafted take the listener on a journey.” So what journey did we just take?

MY INTERPRETATION

This is a song of growing intimacy. The first half represents the infatuation phase. The second half represents a promise.

In the first half of the song we hear the repeating phrase, ‘I can hear her heartbeat.’ How close do you have to be to someone to hear their heartbeat?

So Close GIFs | Tenor

Exactly! He’s letting us know that he is in close relationship with this woman. You can also tell that he is committed to her because rain (As it rained down on me) or shine (Felt the sunlight on my skin) he is still right by her side. He can hear her heartbeat.

Then we get to the second part of the song and something really unusual has happened. We have gone from a very intimate setting to a public gathering. Also we see our first glance to the future, “See the storm clouds up ahead.” He’s not scared though. In fact, now he can FEEL her heartbeat. He has gotten closer to her.

Cat Hug GIF - Cat Hug Love GIFs

Finally, he is no longer singing about her, but to her. “I can feel your heartbeat.” And he is declaring this in the company of a crowd who is singing with him. This is an image of a wedding. The groom is publicly declaring his love to his betrothed in front of witnesses whose presence sings of approval.

In Summary, it’s just another song about a guy and a girl who have fallen in love, and I love it. What do you think? Do you get a different interpretation?

SOURCES

https://www.google.com/amp/s/genius.com/amp/A-new-normal-i-can-feel-your-heartbeat-lyrics
https://open.spotify.com/embed/artist/6VJnJ6OWeHKZzGlEumBPHa

Categories
Music

I’m A Sucker For A Strange Voice

We’re Okay by ghostbird

John Trent Hancock (Vocals/Guitar) & Mike Cooper (Drummer) make up the San Diego band ghostbird. Right now their Spotify monthly listeners sits at 140 making them a perfect candidate for our music recommendation list. In 2009 they released their self titled EP featuring 6 songs. Re-listening to this album for the first time in years I find myself enjoying it quite a bit… seriously go give it 1 listen, and I can’t imagine you won’t find something you like.

ghostbird is a good old fashion rock band who likes to have a little fun with some modern distortion. John Hancock has a strange, high pitched voice whenever he is really belting it out (FYI, I’m a sucker for a strange voice). Musically, their quick strum electrical guitar makes their melodies sound wonderfully hectic and assists in producing an overall sound that evokes feelings of melancholy.

“The way that I write is that I come up with the musical ideas first and then I write the lyrics to fit the mood of the song,” said Hancock.

You can really see this style of song composition in ‘We’re Okay.’ Everything about the melody and instruments is uncertain to begin with. The guitar leaves you in mystery and the snare hits are hesitant. The lyrics match. ghostbird really lets you dive into the thoughts of someone in a struggling relationship with question after question. “Where’s she gonna go?” Is she gonna stay?” “Is she on her way?” In the chorus you see the author search for possible conclusions and land on the best lifeline he can offer her. It’s not much, it’s not even optimistic, but it’s real: “We’re Okay.” John Hancock follows this prayer up with a brief moment of musical stability in the form of a bass solo (or maybe a distorted guitar?).

The second verse reverses the roles and asks the same questions of the man… then no more words. You are left hoping that they will cling to the promise “We’re Okay.”

The song ends with 90 seconds of instrumental. The music starts with a feeling of uncertainty and then builds to a confident crescendo and ends with a satisfied stinger. Although we never hear it from the lyrics I think we can surmise from the music that are holding on to the relationship. They have “realized that we’re okay.” An answered prayer.

Once again I will have to provide lyrics because I’m unable to find the lyrics on the interwebs

Where’s she gonna go?
I don’t really know.
What’s she gonna be?
If only I could see.
Is she gonna stay?
Is she on her way?
Is she gonna run?
What’s she hiding from?

You can break a man. You can take him by his hand.
You can break his heart, tear his chest apart.
But maybe you need is something to believe.
Oh, baby I just pray you start to realize that we’re okay.

Where’s he gonna go?
I don’t really know.
Where’s he gonna be?
Leave it up to me.
Is he gonna stay?
Is he on his way?
Is he gonna run?
What’s he hiding from?

See You can break a man. You can take him by his hand
so you can break his heart, tear his chest apart.
But maybe you need is something to believe.
Oh, baby I just pray you start to realize that we’re okay.

I hope you enjoyed this song and if you loved the album consider purchasing it directly from the John Hancock. As always I want to know what you think. Did you like the song? Do you agree or disagree with my interpretation of the ending? Leave a comment

SOURCES

  1. http://www.iamjohnhancock.com/about
  2. https://sundial.csun.edu/12160/news/indie-band-ghostbird-releases-mediocre-cd/