“The Last Day of the Cold” (single)
Today I’m premiering my first new single in almost a year a day before it officially releases into the world, a song called “The Last Day of the Cold”.
This song is all about trying to enter a new phase, and be happy…without feeling guilty about it, and figuring out how to overcome the things in life that try to remind you, or convince you, that you shouldn’t be happy. This song is very representative of a new phase of life where truthfully I’ve been feeling pretty good…but I can’t help but shake the feeling that it’s not right for me to feel good. Look to your left and to your right…whether it’s right in our own communities, or whether it’s the consistent atrocities from around the globe that we’re exposed to daily….or maybe it’s just the memories that feel impossible to shake in your own mind about a time when you were happy and let you guard down and paid the price for it….it’s hard to just accept happiness.
The first verse outlines a dream of happiness, and then the 2nd verse is waking up from that dream, realizing all it was was a dream, and coming to the realization that happiness always feels like a pursuit, and not a state of mind. And in the end, with the understanding of this potentially never-ending pursuit, it’s understanding that “there’s no place like home til the last day of the cold”....and that while happiness can be hard to claim, there’s always someone or somewhere we can lean on to lift us up along the way.
In 2023, after the release of my very first album “Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore”, I made a conscious effort to go into the year in a completely different way than I ever have…and that’s goal-less. I’m always someone who's planning for the next thing, making another milestone, crafting my 2 or 5 year plan. But not in 2023. I wanted a break from that, and I just wanted to live and see where life took me.
And where it ended up taking me was a call to shoot a mini-documentary around my “Paint What You Feel” documentary that has slowly become much more than a mini-documentary and a year later it’s still a work in progress because of how massive of a project it’s transformed into. I couldn’t be more excited to share my leap into the world of film, but it also meant that releasing music took a backseat.
Because of this, it gave me time to just breathe. To live, to not stress about the next thing but rather allow natural inspirations to guide me to my next thoughts and feelings. This was so hard at first…it really would drive me crazy at times….but I truly believe without that space I wouldn’t have this next batch of songs, and I wouldn’t have the peace of mind I feel now (not all the time I still go crazy here and there) and I wouldn’t have the confidence that I now do in my art and my ability to express myself vulnerably and honestly.
It’s been a long time coming, and part of me feels bad about that…but when I listen to this song and all of the other songs I have coming…I feel it’s undeniable the leap I have taken as an artist, as an expresser, and as a human being. And for everyone else who has been out growing in this time like I have, I hope you can recognize those things in yourself too when you listen to it.
Thank you so much to everyone for being here, and I hope you enjoy “The Last Day of the Cold”. Be sure to share it tomorrow when it’s officially released!
-Aaron