‘Coloring’ is about confronting something that will shatter as soon as you touch it.
Sometimes, it’s best to walk into a musical experience blind, contextless and able to experience the sounds and lyrics without the fat of expectation.
23-year-old Pittsburgh-born singer/songwriter Kevin Garrett wants you to feel his music and find your own meaning in it.
“I don’t like articulating what the song means to me because I’d rather learn what others get from it.”
If you don’t like spoilers, scroll down and listen now. As much as Kevin might protest about his ability to express the meaning behind his songs, his elucidation of gorgeous, pained debut single “Coloring” gives the song a certain weight that makes its exploration of a slowly disintegrating relationship all the more poignant.
“When I wrote [‘Coloring’] I was in the middle of something (duh) and it was good, but I could see it all about to fall apart (cool). So I wanted to touch on how it’s difficult to let your guard down (don’t want the world to know blah blah blah).”
“But then my attitude shifted and I let my dumb heart grow up for once, and the writing took on this sort of sarcastic desperation…The line that gave the track its title is ‘there’s no coloring around us anymore, you either know or you don’t.'”
The result of Garrett’s reflection is an impressive, beautiful first step from an already mature voice—one able to access and translate the pain of romantic transitions to a succinct, poignant essence.
“It all generally refers to that point in a relationship when you have to make a decision and you need to sack up and do it even though you know it’s over. Also, now that I think about it, my willingness to infuse some jokes into this description is a microcosm of most of what I’ve been working on. It’s probably just me being scared of getting too real with people, because at the end of the day this song is still kind of sad and I still don’t like giving in.”
Listen to “Coloring” below.
