Photo by Devon Bristol Shaw
Sarah Greenwell’s solo project, Greeensleeves, charts a different course from her rambunctious output in Gymshorts but retains the same skillful relatability that fuels that band’s troublemaker anthems. “Stay” is a heartbreakingly earnest song. A quiet, solo affair that showcases Greenwell’s skill as a songwriter against a delicate, rolling guitar riff and sparse harmonies that deftly taps into universally elemental emotions. There is a persistent, low grade static that permeates the track, somewhere between the anxious sound of blood rushing through eardrums and the crackling electricity of a favorite sweater pulled overhead on a dry winter day.
“Stay” is a deeply resonant expression of grief and the rawness of emotion laid bare in the vacuum of loneliness is conveyed with boundless sincerity. There is great beauty in the track’s elegant simplicity, vividly constructed with a plainspoken vocabulary that facilitates an easy connection to the heartfelt narrative that is immediately empathic. A string of memories and sensations linked together by an overwhelming desire to remain connected to one that is slipping away and the uncontrollable momentum of a future rapidly approaching and markedly dimmer as a flickering candle gives way to the darkness. With each repetition of the word “stay” quiet desperation builds from a wish to a prayer as the reality of loss slowly rises like the ocean tide on a cold and moonless night and the futility of bargaining with time itself gives way to a reluctant acceptance under the dispassionate drone of waiting room fluorescents.
Shari Page of THICK brings “Stay” to life with a lo-fi, impressionist collage of a video that resembles flipping through a dusty album of faded of memories half remembered and fragmented across the years. There’s a melancholy exuberance conveyed by the tinted and distorted footage, a tangible aura of saudade for days past permeated with joyful innocence, smiling faces captured forever at their happiest moments. Understated but impactful, the music and images exist in perfect harmony, a celebration of analog nostalgia juxtaposed with the stark absoluteness of loss to create what may well be the most perfect expression of a year spent dealing with reality at its most unflinchingly bleak, and a first step on the road towards necessary healing.
“Stay” is streaming now on Spotify. Follow Greeensleeves on Instagram.
