Today’s Song: Kathleen Hopes Anew with “Asking the Aspens”

Rising LA-based songwriter Kathleen hopes anew with the soft and gorgeous “Asking the Aspens” off her debut EP, ‘Kathleen I’.

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Stream: “Asking the Aspens” – Kathleen

You have a picture in your head of who “the one” is or who “the one” is going to be – what they’re going to be like and how they’re going to treat you. Sometimes it’s a version of someone that broke your heart who you don’t want to let go and sometimes it is someone completely new. Thinking about this allusive person gives hope in heartbreak and loneliness. Warner Records-signed artist Kathleen poetically captures the hope of someone new with the soft and gorgeous “Asking the Aspens.”

Hailing from Colorado and now based in Los Angeles, Kathleen debuted in 2019 with a buoyant cover of Joni Mitchell’s classic “Both Sides Now” and has been steadily releasing music ever since. Released in late April, “Asking the Aspens” arrived earlier this year as the final single off the artist’s self-titled debut EP Kathleen I (May 8, 2020 via Kate Brady LLC / Warner Records).

“I’d been thinking a lot about how the Aspen trees in my hometown grow,” Kathleen explains. “How sometimes, Aspens grow from seeds, but usually they shoot up from the root system. So a lot of times, an entire grove could be just one tree, shooting up hundreds of little trees from its roots below the ground for tens of thousands of years. The image of a boy growing out of the root system kept coming to mind. Truthfully, I don’t fully know what it means to me, but the line wouldn’t budge so I had to just trust it. The rest of the song was pulled out of two of my poems, called ‘Gravity in Water’ and ‘She is the vascular system of a love song.'”

Calming acoustic guitar strums before Kathleen’s soft airy vocal begins to sing the first verse,

There were times in the middle when I held you
Between my thoughts
Like when you burned all your paintings in the backyard
Couldn’t be stopped
Or how you hammered up a ladder to summit the roof
And Dean held the nails
There were times in the middle when I loved you
Heavy and soft

The key changes just a slight while the guitar strums break for the Kathleen’s vocals to build to the chorus.

We were way too stoned to stand
But we made it to the top
And you were holding both my hands
And tryna pull me up
Mmm
Cause I was ten then I was fifteen
Then I was yesterday afternoon
And I was hanging from the feeling
That someday you would bloom
Just asking the aspens to grow a boy like you
I keep asking the aspens to grow a boy like you

With the softness of her voice comes a strength in intricate runs perfectly placed throughout,

There were times in the middle when I held you
And it felt like snow
Yeah you’re the only kind of weather so weightless
I can’t feel when I’ve let you go
And there you aren’t in any of it
Hanging sideways like a tree
In the hillside of last summer
In the hillside of a memory

The harmonies and the prominence in the words she’s singing continue to strengthen throughout the track, with slight beats adding an urgency and a feeling of importance to the final chorus of the song:

We were way too stoned to stand
But we made it to the top
And you were holding both my hands
And tryna pull me up

Mmm
Cause I was ten then I was fifteen
Then I was yesterday afternoon
And I was hanging from the feeling
That someday you would bloom
Just asking the aspens to grow a boy like you
I keep asking the aspens to grow a boy like you

“Asking the Aspens” is just one of the tracks off Kathleen’s debut EP, Kathleen I. This poetically charged, fiercely authentic collection of songs is one that should be listened to in its absolute entirety.

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