Tenille Arts Struggles With Matters of the Heart in ‘Cold Feet’
"The first time I heard it, I thought it was like a Nicholas Sparks book in a song. It’s such a great story," Arts said of the single.
The battle between the head and the heart gives Tenille Arts all the conflicting emotions in her new single, “Cold Feet.”
The emotionally-driven ballad sends Arts into the narrator position, for which she chronicles the struggle of a woman making the choice between past true love or her planned romantic future. With the pressures of a wedding amidst in her decision-making process, the girl in lyric questions her happiness within both situations.
Marking the first track Arts recorded in which she didn’t sit down and pen with friends, “Cold Feet” broke the country newcomer’s heart in an intriguing fashion. Leaving the cliffhanger up to the listener to interpret, she resonated with the solemn storytelling behind the words written by Adam Wheeler and John Ritter.
“I just love the song so much. The first time I heard it, I thought it was like a Nicholas Sparks book in a song. It’s such a great story. It leaves it open for anybody to decide how they think the story should end. It tugs at people’s hearts. They have to decide between their head and their heart,” Arts told Sounds Like Nashville during a recent interview.
Arts admits she doesn’t fully fall into the shoes of the “Cold Feet” character—she’s happily in love with a long-term boyfriend—but she sympathizes with the notion of having to settle with the right path despite falling head over heels for both outcomes.
“It’s the whole story—but the part where it’s like, ‘She should be happily wrapped in a dream, dying to kiss him and put on his ring,’” said Arts. “I think if anybody is not dying to marry someone, then clearly—and this happens before she even gets the letter—if she’s questioning it, it’s probably not right.”
New to the Nashville scene, Arts got her start in her native Canada before heading down south to Music City. Drawing from influences such as 90s country queens like the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain to the songwriting abilities of legends like Johnny Cash, Arts combines the authentic writing found in traditional country while holding a place for pop in her work as well.
“It does have women empowerment. It’s a lot of strong women songs. It’s country with a little bit of edge. We say it has a ‘plugged-in’ feel, because it’s a lot of electric guitars. It’s all real instruments. We don’t have a lot of pop stuff going on in it, but I feel like the songs are still current and fresh,” she said to SLN.
“Cold Feet” can be streamed on Spotify now as Arts continues to work on more songs for a possible project coming later this year.
