Singer/songwriter Ginger Winn reckons with grief, loss, and anxiety in “Escape,” the hauntingly beautiful, shiver-inducing third single off her upcoming sophomore album ‘Freeze Frame.’
Stream: “Escape” – Ginger Winn
There’s nothing to fear except the fear of me.
Singer/songwriter Ginger Winn repeats this line like a mantra, her fragile voice giving life to the raw emotions simmering just below the surface. There’s a heaviness to her every exhale: The grief she’s still learning to live with, the anxiety that trails her like a shadow, the aching desire to feel at peace in her own skin. It’s the sound of someone running not just through the woods, but through the winding paths of memory and loss – trying to break free, trying to endure, trying to understand.
But death can’t be understood simply because we will it – and for Winn, the loss of her father is a blow she’ll be processing for years to come. The wound is still fresh as of this writing, and her latest single reflects that unspeakable hurting as she continues to grapple with an unbearable truth. Brutally honest and achingly raw, “Escape” is a song of reckoning and release – an intimate confessional and a vulnerable, cathartic confrontation with Winn’s inner world: The weight, the pain, the hope, and the healing. It’s about facing our fear head-on, making space within ourselves for it, and finding the strength to move forward – together.
Because this is the one thing in life that we can never let go.
These eyes these eyes
I wish for blindness sometimes
See now too much
There’s more than enough
Voices
No not in my mind
Just outside
There’s too many noises
In daily life
Hear all the talk
Need headphones just to walk
Around the corner
To the corner shop
I watch the flames
Dance on your face
Alone in a room
I still feel out of place
Anxiety in such an empty space
It’s just me and you
And the forest awaits
Do you see through the
Peace on my face?
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Escape,” the hauntingly beautiful third single taken off Ginger Winn’s forthcoming sophomore album Freeze Frame (out June 13, 2025 via Keep Good Company Records). Following recent songs “Freezing” and “Not You” – both of which capture Winn’s artistic growth and transformation in the short time since her acclaimed debut album, Stop-Motion – “Escape” dives headfirst into the emotional core of Freeze Frame, threading themes of mortality, mental health, and identity into a cathartic alt-folk fever dream. With a spectral wolfdog trailing her every move, Winn embodies the aching paradox of wanting to run from herself – and finally realizing the only way out is through.
Winn’s voice swells as “Escape” reaches its devastating, soul-baring climax — a refrain that blurs the line between confrontation and plea.
“Except me, accept me,” she cries, over and over again, the words tumbling out like breath she’s been holding in for years. It’s a moment of release, of reckoning, of reclaiming: The fear she’s been running from is her own reflection. By naming it, she begins to strip it of its power. In this repetition, Winn finds clarity — not by escaping herself, but by meeting her pain with compassion and her anxiety with understanding.
Her voice is a beacon of resilience and surrender, soaring atop a bed of charged instruments.
Me and the trees
Nothing there to fear
There’s nothing out there
Except me
Knowing myself
The only way to wealth
There’s nothing out there
In these trees
There nothing to fear
Inside of me
Except me, accept me
Except accept except me
Except me, accept me
Except accept except me
“It’s about running – and trying to escape your own mind and thoughts, which is very hard to do,” Winn tells Atwood Magazine. “There’s a double meaning when I say ‘except me / accept me.’ Not only does the song mean ‘there’s nothing to fear except the fear of me,’ but it’s also a plea – as you hear the vocals crying out, ‘accept me.’ Social anxiety in an empty space like the woods is an eerie, indescribable, nonsensical feeling as real as the trees themselves.”
Accompanying the release of “Escape” is its official music video, directed by frequent collaborator Brooklyn Zeh and set at Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskills Mountains. The breathtaking visual highlights the track’s (and Winn’s) very real emotions: As Winn roams around a wintry, snow-coated forest floor, towering trees and majestic waterfalls all around her, she finds herself joined by a wolfdog – one that just so happens to be the very dog breed her late father owned.
“The dog is anxiety, and the dark side of our mind that we can’t escape,” Winn shares. “It follows you even when you’re not looking, and you don’t want to see it. Not only does it represent anxiety, but it also represents my dad, who always had a Wolfdog. Shooting this video and making friends with this dog was very healing – almost like I got to tell my dad goodbye and have one last moment with him.”
Winn granted herself moments of closure and connection throughout her song and its music video, and now, together, they stand as a testament to the everlasting bonds we form between the living and the dead – and to the evolving relationship we continue forge with ourselves in the wake of loss, grief, and change.
Because try as we might, we can’t outrun our own mind.
Spinning dusty vinyls
And chasing tapestry
I lost count of all
The people mad at me
But I learned to let it go
They keep inventory
So exactlying
But I enjoy the show they see
Knowledge of self
What’s the math you see
You can’t push the river
But you can divert the stream
Dive under and come out
On the other side
Live to live another life
My skin is single ply
Who knows just how many times
That I’ll die
Maybe we think it’s once
But maybe it’s a….
Nevermind
“Escape” is more than just a song – it’s a reckoning, a remembrance, and a radical act of self-embrace. In the silence between the trees and the shadow of the wolfdog, Ginger Winn finds herself not in the absence of fear, but in the acknowledgment of it. Her journey through sorrow becomes a path to self-knowledge, and with each breath – shuddered and sung – she begins to heal. There’s nothing to fear except the fear of me – and in naming that truth, she begins to move forward, not away from herself, but toward wholeness.
As Freeze Frame approaches, Winn invites us to witness not just the still images of her past, but the motion within them: The flickers of light in darkness, the softness in sorrow, the strength that comes from standing still long enough to feel everything.
Stream “Escape” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more to come from the Kingston, New York-based artist in the lead-up to her sophomore album!
Freeze Frame is out June 13th.
Me and the trees
Nothing there to fear
There’s nothing out there
Except me
Knowing myself
The only way to wealth
There’s nothing to fear
In these trees
There nothing to fear
Inside of me
Except me accept me
Except accept except me
Except me accept me
Except accept except me
There’s nothing to fear except the fear of me
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:: stream/purchase Escape here ::
:: connect with Ginger Winn here ::
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Stream: “Escape” – Ginger Winn
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