The song, Stay With Me by Clinton Belcher, is like a person opening the door that you did not want them to open to look at the tender shivering areas you did not want them to expose in the first place. The song is unapologetically emotional and this is rather disarming. It leans towards that country-rock softness, yet it has the support of a vintage power ballad, the one that is not shy to be a little dramatic when that is what the heart requires.
The manner in which it grows makes it so hard to hit. Belcher begins here in this almost naked position with his voice battered like an old leather jacket, rough and rocky and sincere. It sounds as though he is singing to a single individual in an empty room, the type of experience when you could hear every breath, every crack to which he is not attempting to be discreet. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the song starts beginning to swell. Instrument by instrument is crept into the darkness, as shadows before dusk. Nothing overshadows any other thing; everything only makes the moment deeper, larger without losing its heartbeat.
His voice... it possesses that character which remains when the sound is lost. Salt but sweet, as though someone is attempting to remain strong, but something is tearing them inside. He never shows off. Rather, he allows the weakness to speak itself, and such frankness makes the entire song feel less as a performance and more as confession.
Everything is held with a light hand on the production. The strings are lifting the song into these expansive, filmic areas, yet never to the detriment of the country bones within. The electric guitar brings in a touch of hotness, a touch of sharpness, and the pedal steel continues pulling the song back to its origin, a hand on the small of your back.
And it is that balance, the thrust and the tug of strength and softness, which lingers. The song ascends into this high-pitched triumphant key shift, the one that seems like a heart falling in love, then falls again into something small and sore. It is that contrast, it is that puffing up and down, which is long remembered when the last note is played.
Stay With Me is the type of song that is created to be enjoyed by individuals who prefer their emotions big and real, and who will always desire honesty in a grand package. Belcher succeeds in making something that is very personal and also very grand and he demonstrates that you can be weak and at the same time occupy space that you can be alone and at the same time sound like you are singing at the top of a cathedral.
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