Achingly intimate and hauntingly beautiful, Hayfitz’s soul-stirring “Music Room” is raw vulnerability manifest in a breathtaking indie folk song.
Stream: “Music Room” – Hayfitz
Can you blame me for just telling the truth? I fell in love with you…
A hush falls over the ears as Hayfitz’s first single of the year gets underway.
It’s the softness of stillness; an unabating fragility; a shiver-inducing whisper on the wind, barely audible to the naked ear. Heavy words fall from the artist’s mouth like gentle breaths, in and out, in and out, hitting with a weight several times their strength as he pours himself out in song, exposing his bruised heart for all to see, hear, and feel. Achingly intimate and hauntingly beautiful, Hayfitz’s soul-stirring “Music Room” is raw vulnerability manifest in a breathtaking indie folk song.
Golden-hued and glistening, it’s a sweetly sun-kissed eruption rising up from the depths of the artist’s innermost sanctum. It’s a tender turbulence – an outpouring of passion, pain, and visceral human connection.
Climbing ladders up to the roof
Locked out of our music room
Those pretzels were our only food
I hardly knew you
Getting high with Bing & Ruth
No idea what this would turn into
Thought you were just passing through
I hardly knew you
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Music Room,” the lead single off Hayfitz’s forthcoming sophomore album Everything Else (out October 6, 2023 via SeaYou Records). The queer gentle folk project of New Jersey-born singer/songwriter Brandon Hafetz, Hayfitz is a weaver of delicate wonders – his discography a series of lush and sweetly ethereal indie folk daydreams. Warm acoustic guitars and radiant, whisper-like vocals create a familiar and cozy space for all to dwell in as we soak up the artist’s enchantingly intimate and immersive sound.
Atwood Magazine recently included Hayfitz’s November 2022 single “Atlantic City” in our 86th Editor’s Picks, praising the artist for his songwriting and atmospheric production, and the song in turn for its sense of freedom and comfort. “‘Atlantic City’ feels like light – like it could up and fly away; and yet it stays grounded, enchanting the ears and enriching the soul with heartfelt words and delicate strums,” we wrote. “Rich, gentle giants of vocal harmony retell this story of a day in the life. There are no frills; no tricks; just an artist using the instruments at his disposal to commemorate a meaningful moment in their lives.”
“Atlantic City” was the last song Hayfitz released while living in the United States; earlier this year, the artist moved across the Atlantic from Brooklyn to Berlin, Germany, and is ready to plant new roots as he unveils his sophomore LP. “Music Room” is therefore not only the start of his record, but also the start of a beautiful new European journey.
The song itself lays the foundations for Everything Else, which Hayfitz recorded and co-produced while isolated in a cabin with the very person the entire record is about. It’s an album of unrequited love with the artist’s collaborator-turned-best friend, Sam Cope.
“I knew that as soon as I admitted to Sam what it was all about, that it was no longer going to be just hypothetical,” Hayfitz tells Atwood Magazine. “It was a very dark internal chapter for me. But it had to happen one way or another as far as me telling him. And it’s all embedded in the record. It’s right there, starting with the first song, ‘Music Room.’”
Hayfitz’s chorus is a moment of catharsis and connection: Radiant sound and his own raw inner reckoning coalesce in a beautiful, yet brutally honest confessional:
Can you blame me for getting confused?
I was terrified it all was so new
Can you blame me for just telling the truth?
I fell in love with you, what I knew of you
“‘Music Room’ is in a lot of ways the thesis statement for this new record,” Hayfitz explains. “Sonically, conceptually, emotionally – all of it really outlines what’s to come in the record. For me it was the quickest song to write and the song that I knew I needed to write more than any of the others. I remember showing the demo to Sam for the first time and him being shocked by how all of these experiences we had somehow fit perfectly together rhyming wise. Everything about its conception just felt very mystical and we tried to capture that with how it sounds too.”
Took you to see Mr. Jukes
Then slept until the afternoon
I thought it may still be too soon
I hardly knew you
I left right at the start of June
Hoped I wouldn’t still think of you
And though I really wanted to
I hardly knew you
He continues, “Thinking about how I genuinely never expected to make music with Sam again and then flashing forward to years later listening back to this song together at the cabin after recording it… it was just the most emotional moment with music I think I’ve ever had. Music has taken on a whole new level of meaning and purpose for me from that point forward – really understanding the power that it can have.”
Can you blame me for getting confused?
I was terrified it all was so new
Can you blame me for just telling the truth?
I fell in love with you, what I knew of you
From its hushed beginnings to its lush, soaring, and smoldering latter half, “Music Room” resonates with unfiltered intimacy and intensity. Not only is it a powerful song to start an album, but it’s also an emphatic, emotionally charged beginning to the next chapter in Hayfitz’s career. Stream this breathtaking song exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
Didn’t tell you how I wanted to
Couldn’t remember what u said you’d do
Drank until I didn’t have to choose
I had to tell you, I couldn’t keep it from you
Now look at what I’ve put you through
I made it so we all would lose
Just wish we could get back into
That music room
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:: stream/purchase “Music Room” here ::
Stream: “Music Room” – Hayfitz
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