In the Before Times, singer-songwriter Christina Martin was visited by a dream. Maybe it was prophetic. Maybe it was inevitable. Whatever the case, the video for “Stay With Me” is an absolutely surreal reminder that our fears and insecurities, even if they are somewhat justified, are often bigger in our own minds.
“Stay with Me” provides a string-drenched lead single to Martin’s upcoming album, Storm—with the demons haunting Martin’s subconscious having such an impact that they’ve formed a conceptual cornerstone to not just the single, but the whole album.
“The muse for this song came in a pre-pandemic dream,” Martin shares. “I saw a girl wander a cobblestone city-street, through thick fog and moonlit night, and heard a familiar melody and the line ‘stay with me.’ Unlike in dreams where I sometimes feel trapped in terrifying scenarios, with this song I found a space to purge my fears, and then coax myself to a better place.”
As one of the first songs recorded for the album, Martin explains that “Stay With Me” played a large role in setting the “soundscape” for Storm, though when it first emerged, it was originally rendered in a more upbeat pop/rock style. It’s a far cry from the resulting song and the epic Lovecraftian imagery of the Brendan Henry-directed music video.
With Martin, once again, collaborating with Dale Murray, the pair also turned to Karen Graves for an orchestral arrangement on a cinematic scale; you simply cannot have tentacles—real or imagined—emerging from the sky without an orchestra handy. It’s unheard of.
Of course, at the end of the video, having addressed a number of fears ranging from masks to ageing—though none trumping the idea of abandonment—Martin emerges from her gilded cage. As the kids have been saying for the last sixty years: fear is the mind killer. It’s also a life preserver but, as Martin seems to suggest, let’s not worry ourselves too much over fears of the dreamt-up tentacle variety.
“Stay With Me” will appear on Christina Martin’s upcoming eighth studio album, Storm, slated for a Fall 2022 release.
Tour Dates:
10.24.21 — Online Music Video Premiere for “Stay with Me”
11.05.21 — Tracadie, PE @ Tracadie Community Centre,
11.06.21 — Oxford, NS @ Oxford Capitol Theatre
11.19.21 — New Glasgow, NS @ The Monarch
11.20.21 — Fredericton, NB @ The Tipsy Muse Cafe