Passionate and stirring, The Blue Winter’s “Up on the Stage” offers thought-provoking folk in an inspiring moment of true, raw vulnerability.
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Does it ever get easier, acting the right way?
The Blue Winter fills the air with wonder in his new song, questioning aloud the meaning, impact, and value of self-expression both for himself and others. He sings with both a sense of urgency and doubt, opening himself more than he’s ever done before in an inspiring moment of true, raw vulnerability. Passionate and stirring, The Blue Winter’s “Up on the Stage” is a thought-provoking folk song full of questions for which there are no concrete answers.
Up on the stage,
Everyone acts all the same.
They push themselves back
Erase all the facts.
Up on the stage
Everyone hides all their pain
They wash it all down
Til they don’t make a sound
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Up on the Stage,” the latest single from Northeast Ohio’s The Blue Winter. A homegrown folk project by Aaron Benjamin Troyer, The Blue Winter introduced himself in late 2018 with a string of hearty Americana songs brimming with rootsy warmth – including an endearing cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”
“Up on the Stage” quite literally upstages these songs, asserting itself as The Blue Winter’s strongest offering yet through driving beats, mellow harmonies, and a raw, impassioned message:
Does it ever get easier –
Acting the right way?
Does it ever get easier –
When you know
you’re going the wrong way
“‘Up On The Stage’ is about the tension that surrounds sharing a piece of yourself with the world,” The Blue Winter tells Atwood Magazine. “I think every artist feels this to some extent – you want your art to be public, to be out there, to mean something to someone, but you’re also putting a part of yourself out there, too. The original, personal meaning a song starts with and the collective, public meaning it can take once it’s out is kind of at the core of what’s going on with ‘Up On The Stage.’ I suppose there’s an element of what it feels like to be a performer, too. Beyond that, it seems like there’s an inner and outer dialogue to almost everything in life, so the song has a universal aspect to it as well.”
For us, “Up on the Stage” can be (and is) a song of vulnerability and the value of embracing individuality and oneself. For the artist, these ideas dive deeper into the core of his humanity: This is him confronting the very act of self-expression, challenging many aspects of this special and so often harrowing public performance.
Up on the stage
Hearts on the line
What if it don’t shine?
Everyone lies,
Why can’t I?
Up on the stage
I hide in my songs
While you sing along
It comes out so vague
So no one sees its shape
The finer beauty of “Up on the Stage” is the acknowledgement that the song itself is an outpouring of the artist’s soul; it echoes with humility and real uncertainty about his place in the world, and his relationship with his artistry and his own songs. Where does Aaron Benjamin Troyer stop and The Blue Winter begin? Are they one and the same, two distinct entities, or something hazier in-between? “Up on the Stage” similarly provokes us to consider the relationship between our inner and outer selves, demanding more from us than most songs ever have.
Stream The Blue Winter’s “Up on the Stage” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
Stream: “Up on the Stage” – The Blue Winter
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