A breathtaking folk ballad full of bright acoustics and soaring violin work, Ryanhood’s “Wide Awake in a Dream” captures love’s dreamy wonder with elegancy and delicate grace.
Stream: “Wide Awake in a Dream” – Ryanhood
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The sights, sounds, and smells of spring are slowly seeping into the cool March air, bringing with them a wave of warmth and the end to a very long, dark, and socially distanced winter. It’s getting to be that special time of renewal and rejuvenation – and while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage throughout the United State and around the world, we’re beginning to see a faint light at the end of a very long tunnel. It’s time for a breath of fresh air, and today that comes in the form of Ryanhood’s achingly expressive new single. A breathtaking folk ballad full of bright acoustics and soaring violin work, “Wide Awake in a Dream” captures love’s dreamy wonder with elegancy and delicate grace.
It’s a beautiful beginning, and an all-too fitting way to usher in 2021’s warmer months – ones that hopefully arrive with good tidings and new possibilities.
Lately I’ve been falling for you
But I can’t fall asleep
Wide awake at night
As I set the scene
You and me
You and me
Wide awake in a dream
We wouldn’t have to wake up
On our own
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Wide Awake in a Dream,” the third single off Ryanhood’s forthcoming ninth album Under the Leaves (out April 16, 2021). The Tucson, Arizona-based duo of Ryan David Green and Cameron Hood, Ryanhood formed as an acoustic street performer group in Boston’s Quincy Market in 2003 and have been weaving dazzling acoustic tapestries ever since.
Nearly twenty years into their career together, the pair continue to innovate on their folk pop brand, bringing a refreshing energy and sweetness into new music that resonates in with that special warmth reserved for acoustic instruments.
This comes to bear throughout “Wide Awake in a Dream,” which follows this year’s previous singles “The Fight” and the mesmerizing, “Classical Gas”-like instrumental, “Appy Returns” (a truly fascinating listen reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s acoustic work and The Allman Brothers’ early work). “Wide Awake in a Dream” is markedly different from these two songs, replacing the energy of the former and the groovy instrumental dance of the latter with a heartfelt embrace of romance’s visceral intimacy.
“I was thinking about those big, almost painfully-big feelings at the beginning of a relationship,” lead guitarist Ryan David Green tells Atwood Magazine. “Shortly after I graduated from college (Berklee College of Music in Boston), I met the girl who would later become my wife. I taught her weekly guitar lessons, and she would come and help sell our CDs when we street performed at Quincy Market. I had a huge crush on her but didn’t tell her for the longest time. This song is about those times, laying awake at night, filled with those huge feelings, but not yet having revealed them.”
As I’m staring at the ceiling
I see shapes and stars
Like I’m painting
You a work of art
On the ocean, you are smiling
When you realize
That I made this world
Just to light your eyes
“Ryan first brought “Wide Awake in a Dream” to me when we were writing for our last album, Yearbook,” Cameron Hood adds. “But I’m so glad we saved it. Its dream sequences are right at home with the nocturnal wonderings of a lot of the songs on Under The Leaves. Lyrically, Ryan is painting dreamlike worlds, and I think that’s a good metaphor for what he’s done with the melodies, rhythms, electric guitars, and string sections of this whole album.”
Sentimental and stirring, “Wide Awake in a Dream” is a blissful immersion into that deepest form of connection.
It’s a window into a relationship’s growth, capturing through its vivid imagery and buoyant, tender violin swells the excitement, charm, and pure passion we all feel as we’re falling in love.
You and me
You and me
Wide awake in a dream
We’d never have to wake up
On our own
Ryanhood have outdone themselves with a song that will continue to bring light into this world long after springtime has come and gone. For now, it’s the perfect soundtrack to inaugurate the new season with a flash of sweet, soaring acoustic grace. Stream “Wide Awake in a Dream” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
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Stream: “Wide Awake in a Dream” – Ryanhood
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