Taryn Papa Opens Her Heart, and Her Eyes, On ‘Awake’
Check out this inspirational new power anthem.
Fresh faced country singer Taryn Papa knows what a life-changing experience true love can be, and in her majestic new power-anthem, “Awake,” she puts it in song.
Celebrating the eyes-wide-open impact of falling head over heels, the new single was perfectly timed to come out just before Valentine’s Day, and Papa says that was no accident. The track comes from a real place in her heart, since not too long ago she met someone new — and now it’s like she’s seeing everything for the first time, all over again.
“Almost a year ago I met a guy at a private party where I was singing, and I generally say I don’t pay attention to everything around me,” Papa tells Sounds Like Nashville. “I’m hyper focused on making my career happen, and I don’t want any distractions. But I was looking at the crowd, everyone was happy and singing along, and then he walked in. I was like ‘Holy cow!’”
Featuring propulsive modern beats, sweeping sonics and some of the most inspiring, diva-level vocals in current country, the song she ended up writing captures what happened next.
“I actually got off stage and walked over to him like ‘I’m supposed to know you,'” Papa explains. “I just felt it, and felt this wave of freshness and newness that I’ve never experienced before. The bridge in that song is like ‘Has the sky always been this blue?’ And it’s like I never noticed so many things, I never knew a lot of things — like that I wanted someone to hold my hand on the sidewalk, that I wanted someone to fill this part of me that I was blocking out for so long, focused on making it.”
That feeling doesn’t come from nowhere, and it’s one that anyone driven to succeed in their field will understand — not just hopeful stars. Papa arrived in Nashville nine years ago from Connecticut and immediately found regular gigs wowing tourists on Lower Broadway, but she knew how long the odds of achieving her dreams were … so, she buckled down.
“As a person, I walk around with a fire in my spirit,” she says. “I have a lot of fire in me and everything I do, I do it 1000 percent. If there’s a will there’s a way, and I’m gonna make it happen.”
That mindset comes through not just in her writing, but in the sound of “Awake” as well. With a force-of-nature vocal that can switch from whispering like a breeze to thundering like a hurricane, Papa’s voice and recalls the inspirational power of her favorite artists — names like “Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Martina McBride, Celine Dion, Heart and Pat Benetar” — and now that she’s found the love she thought would never happen, she says it could happen to anyone.
“I feel so renewed,” Papa says. “It’s like even listening to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’ Before this, it was like ‘Oh that’s cute, she will always love him.’ I used to relate that to my cat. But now it’s like ‘Oh my god. If anything ever happened to him ….” It has changed my perspective of the whole world, and I think it’s a cool track to ask people ‘who changed your world? Who opened your eyes?’”
“Awake” will soon be followed by an EP (with more info coming soon), as a whole new world of topics have opened up for Papa to explore. Now that she believes in true love she’s already seeing a difference — it’s not just a balance between her work and personal life. She says love is actually making her work better.
Just after “Awake” came out, Papa was invited to play her first show at Nashville’s beloved Whiskey Jam concert series, and after graduating from those four-hour cover band gigs on Lower Broadway, she celebrated the single’s release with a show back on her old stomping grounds. Taking the stage at Blake Shelton’s Ole Red, her audience included family, friends and her boyfriend, plus some of the fans that supported her all through those honky tonk years. Now, their eyes are opened, too.
“People were like ‘Wow you’ve grown so much!'” Papa said. “And I’m like ‘Girl, you’ve seen me singing “Wagon Wheel” six times a day. This is my element. This is what I was born to do.'”
