Photo by Lindsay Morgan
Premiere: Ethan Samuel Brown reconciles with the 10-year town on ‘Being Blue’
Brown’s new song is a haunting depiction of the Nashville struggle.
“Nostalgia is quite a muse,” reflects Ethan Samuel Brown. With his somber new song “Being Blue,” the singer-songwriter admits that he’s “giving up on being blue,” letting the sadness drain from his body to reassess his life station. Nashville, known as the “10-Year Town,” carries a bloody crucifix – a sacrifice in life that no one is willing to pay. “Being Blue,” premiering on B-Sides & Badlands today, echoes with melancholic and sharp clarity that maybe none of it has been worth it.
“I had been reflecting on a decade in Nashville, the ‘10-year-town’. Unresolved, slightly jaded, and exhausted; I took note of my contemporaries who had suddenly traded their guitar for a real-estate license,” he confides. “In an effort to draw a through line between the ages of 18 and 28, I wrote the second verse about an earlier time when I felt the winds of change behind my sails. Life shifts in bittersweet directions on occasion and that’s okay.”
“I’m homesick for anywhere / Let’s cast a wide net tonight / The memory of my golden year looks different now in neon light,” he sings, dripping his voice over stunning piano keys and bristling electric guitar. “It’s long overdue / I’m giving up on being blue.” Those words worm their way into the instruments, as though taking on another character of their own.
“Being Blue” samples Brown’s forthcoming Small Actors, what he calls a project for the “avid listener,” he says. “The value of an album has been degraded by the era of quick content. [This album] is a full mapped-out body of work. Do you listen to albums with a focused intensity? Do you avoid ‘skip’ at all costs during your first listen through? Do you search for reoccurring themes and easter eggs? I know I do.”
Small Actors arrives on January 10.
Listen to “Being Blue” below.
