In a Song

“It's alright,
It's this goodbye
Won't hurt me for too long
I'll be fine on my own
It'll take some time, but I know that I
I can find where I belong
And I'll find it in a song”

In a Song – Hunter Hayes

I’ve always been into finding new artists and discovering music. I typically discover new artists by their song being played on on the radio or watching on a show like The X Factor or at the suggestion of a friend. My latest music discovery is Hunter Hayes, who I found in a slightly less conventional way – that is, I saw his display in a Walmart in Yuma, Arizona, and when I came back to New Zealand looked him up because I thought he looked like an alright artist. Okay, I thought he was cute. Really cute. And you can’t have bad music if you’re really cute, right?

I listened to a few tracks off his self-titled debut album and thought I must have this all the time. I bought the entire album, Encore edition, and have since listened to it nearly every day. A few days ago I would’ve written it’s the best album I have heard in a while, but then I discovered Hunter Hayes has a second album that is as good (and maybe in a different blog I will address that New Zealand is still six months behind discovering artists have new music). I have always been hesitant to get into country music as it is such a big beast and I wouldn’t know where to start. I wish I had started listening to country music much earlier; there is something in this type of music that speak s to me – the honesty and tenderness, and the lack of trying to make a song edgy for the sake of it becoming popular.

I could easily write a blog about every one of Hunter Hayes’ songs. I could write about being swept off your feet like in Storm Warning. I could write about everything going wrong but keeping positive like in Faith to Fall Back On. I could write about going an adventure like Better Than This or creating a life with someone like in Storyline or I could tackle a heavy issue like bullying as written about in Invisible. But when I mapped out what I would write I kept realising one common thing: every song had an answer within it.

In a Song talks about what I believe in with music – that when all is lost, the music will be there. I search for answers in music when I’ve been hurt or I’ve hurt myself, when I feel lost or confused or when I have so much going on I need to find a release. When I have my iPod plugged in I go to a different place, my happy place, with my music. I’ve walked away from relationships knowing that I have my music and have my blog to make me feel better; I may harp on about some problematic guy in a post, but after it’s been written the hurt goes away.

Discovering Hunter Hayes’ music has made for a great past few months. In my mind I have pulled apart all his songs and taken what I need from them. This is the kind of artist I want to go on an adventure with; I want to follow his music for as long as his career spans and every song he releases I want to feel something from. One day I will see him live in concert, and it will be so exciting. And I will look up at all 1.68m of him and secretly smile at how my love of his music started in a Walmart.