Music Review // Clay Hazey "tulips"

 

If you happen to be in the New England area of the United States, as I am, then hearing the song "Tulips" today helps to enforce your false sense of Spring time.  We're having temperatures up near the 70s right now, but it won't last and I don't think it's quite fully here yet, but it just feels nice to be out of the snow.  In that same way, this song by Clay Hazey feels like a new beginning in the same way that the sun rises a bit differently when it's bringing about the growth of nature-- the way the grass just shines differently.

Clay Hazey brings several lines of sadness into this acoustic-based, slowly paced song.  The lyrics: "Is it me or is the grass not even greener on the other side of having enough?" seem to ring true because while money would solve a lot of problems for people, it still wouldn't fix everything.  This is combined with the lines which say: "Don't you go siding with your demons / Cause they're easier to defend" and that just makes it feel like we're trying to overcome some mental instability, which can especially be appreciated during the time when Winter turns into Spring.

While I don't believe that the weather is directly responsible for our mood (If that were true, people in places like California would be happy all the time and they're not) I do think it has some impact on it.  Clay Hazey really feels like he captures the idea in this song of how winter can mean being stuck inside and just shorter days, less sunlight and so you feel more down about things.  But the way that the sun can shine brighter for Spring and how that can change your mood to a more positive light just also feels so vital to survival but also just a reminder to keep going because Winter can't last forever.

With elements of Jeff Buckley and The Honorary Title within this song there are some instruments (especially strings) whch come out with the acoustics and it all comes to an end with this big musical outro.  Perhaps my favorite line in this song says "Silver lining / You're younger when you're crying / You're born again when you fall apart".   When we have these mental break downs- and it happens more often than you might think- the one thing we need to talk about more is how putting ourselves back together can be a sort of rebirth, like the tulips who will once again come out of the ground in the Spring time.