After You Come Close...

I love coming close in all relationships in my life, not just the romantic ones. But fully opening up whether it is to friends or someone you can see yourself spending the rest of your life with is scary as hell. What if that love is not reciprocated? What if that passion and interest fades or fizzles out? What if they are only attracted to the good parts we show the world? Would they love the things we run from? Our demons? Our fears? What if we admitted we don’t always have it figured out? You can’t come close to forever or having those ride or die friends without this raw vulnerability. Luckily we have music that plays out the different turns relationships can take. The honesty of these songs I am going to highlight guide us in identifying and really sitting with these vulnerable stages of opening up, sometimes getting burned, and healing from it. Jake Scott, Old Dominion, and Kelsea Ballerini gave us new music recently that takes us from the first stages of opening up, to already being in so deep you can’t imagine letting go, to the healing and the beauty of moving on if you have nothing left to give.

Last week Jake Scott worked with The Wild Honey Pie to throw a dinner party just for his fans to promote his new album Lavender dropping October 20th. Jake’s label created a little card game to get his fans closer together and maybe make some new friends. As someone who just attended this event let me tell you it worked! You put about 50 strangers in a room for an hour and a half and you think “Wow how awkward was that”, well the answer? Not awkward at all. Everyone, including Jake, brought such a welcoming vibe and positive energy. There were no awkward silences in that room. And we did use the card game! There were some deep questions in there which really got the conversations deeper than ‘What shows have you seen Jake before and how far did you drive?’ (The farthest was 6 hours from Rochester NY btw) My favorites were the questions on who you love the most, what is your love language, what was a turning point in your life, and what can you say you did this year that you couldn’t the year before. These are questions that may take months before you ask your partner or never if you don’t feel that comfortable or close to your friends.

Besides incorporating lavender into all parts of the meal, Jake brought the come close theme back together when he performed the new song ‘Come Close’ for the first time to this intimate audience. When people first meet someone and are getting to know them they instinctively put the best version of themselves on display hoping the object of their affection falls for them. We aren’t going to lead with our biggest insecurities or our deepest fears, we want to come off like we have it all together. In reality most of us don’t and until we expose those other parts, not just the good parts, to another person the connection isn’t as deep. Jake Scott knew the very night he met his future wife Rachel that this was the girl he was going to marry young and spend the rest of his life with. However, he was also self aware enough to know he can’t have forever unless he is really willing to come close in every sense of the word. I’m scared your falling for my good side/I need you to break me into pieces/show you all my demons or we won’t come close to all we could be. Jake is singing about the first real stages of vulnerability in a relationship, one that feels like it can go the distance. Opening up is really the only way to know if someone wants to be all in with you, with all parts of you.

What happens once you pass the scary vulnerable part? Once someone else knows you better than you know yourself? Old Dominion and Megan Moroney wrote about the other spectrum of a relationship, after all the demons are exposed and every memory is so engrained in everything, in everything you smell (lavender for Jake’s story) and every melody you hear. CBUN or ‘Can’t Break Up Now’ dives into the need to hold on because losing the person who you’ve given all yourself to is unfathomable. How do you move on when your whole life has been intertwined with someone else? At this point I can’t unlearn the things you taught me about myself/So what am I supposed to unlisten to every song written/ take you you of every melody. You know my secrets, my demons/I know your weaknesses all of your doubts and your dreams. The thought of starting over and getting as close to someone new is just as scary as the first time, maybe even scarier because now you have all these memories of the past that you don’t know if you will ever be able to undo. Old Dominion’s new full length album Memory Lane is out October 6th which will further dive into the journey of relationships, all the human emotions from the light hearted ones to the deeper ones, but as they announced just because the music is deeper doesn’t mean it won’t feel good. Can’t wait guys!

Sometimes, and eventually, starting over will feel good and even better than you thought. Kelsea Ballerini recently experienced and left it all out on the table for us in her rerelease of RUTWM with ‘Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good)’ which came out August 11th. Healing was a process for Kelsea and a big part of getting to the other side of her very public divorce was embracing the songs she thought she would release quietly. Turns out her fans resonated so much with these songs, that singing them every night, and changing the lyrics became so cathartic. It was a way for her to get closure and she also got even closer to her fans, now the healed version of this EP isn’t just Kelsea’s, it is very much all of ours, and now it is a chapter Kelsea is more than ever ready to close.

The infamous lyric changes went viral and the rerelease was very much fan demanded; from screaming Yeah,Sure,Okay at the live show to demanding ‘Interlude’ be extended because it was illegal to end that juicy thought process in 45 seconds. We needed the tea and Kelsea delivered! ‘Penthouse (Healed Version)’ really shows Kelsea is moving on changing the lyric I kissed someone new last night and now I don’t know where you’re sleeping baby to I kissed someone new last night and now I don’t care where you’re sleeping baby. The questions we have during a breakup like ‘where are they’ ‘did they hate me’ changed to affirmative statements, I know you hate me but I don’t care where you are anymore. Some people are just chapters in our lives, and that is okay. My personal favorite addition to RUTWM For Good is full length ‘Interlude’. Specifically the line ‘Forever’s just the interlude’. Once you come close to someone there is a chance you were right and that person is your forever fairytale. There is also a chance that happily ever after isn’t always true, some forevers are just chapters in your story.

So, if you have to how do you begin again? Kelsea Ballerini concluded the RUTWM chapter with a song asking this very question, she is ready for her next chapter, but how does she do this is the honest question she had running through her head when she went on her first date post divorce. After you come close, jump into that raw vulnerability, and then it doesn’t work out everything you think you know about love is thrown out the window. Like everyone, beginning this process again Kelsea is ready to move on but scared of looking stupid. At the Under The Welcome Mat exclusive screening Kelsea performed How Do I Do This for the very attentive NYC audience. She genuinely is so grateful that the fans made her play these songs every night and helped it evolve the way it did. To show what a clever and thoughtful songwriter she is at the end of the song she really wanted to point out the full circle moment this journey has taken her. The first song off of RUTWM Mountain With A View the opening line is it’s 7am and I’m on a mountain with a view. And the final line of For Good in How Do I Do This is I’m freaking out, like Oh My God, Cause now its 7 on the dot. From alone at 7am in her old life to 7pm waiting for the start of her new chapter it truly is a metaphor for how far she has come, the work and the healing she has done, and the life she is ready to live. As she said on The Today Show she is very ready to just live a life worth writing about.

In conclusion, you can’t have deep love that is written about in songs without that first step of fully coming close, opening up all of yourself. We do this knowing that there is a chance it isn’t the forever you envisioned. Trying to start over will not only be confusing and messy, it will be hard undoing all those memories, once that person is in every sent, every melody, every aspect of you it feels undoable. There can be beauty in letting go of one love, because you can fall in love with yourself again. Relearn who you are as an individual. Like Kelsea you might not know what the hell you are doing on that first date, but you know who you are, and that is truly half the battle. So come close. Open up to friends to partners to family and to YOURSELF. Even though it is a gamble the reward is worth the risk. You got this and if you still feel like you don’t, remember these artists and songs are here for you to work through each stage of relationships with others and the most important one, the relationship you have with yourself.

~With Love Rockin Rox