I haven’t been listening to Aiden’s music very long – just a few months. But one thing that strikes me about his songs is how much they grow on me after listening a few times. Because I write with music in the background, I don’t always pay attention to the lyrics – but when I find a song that catches my ear, I stop, pause, turn up the sound. I listen.

Aiden’s songs make me listen.

Welcome Aiden, to The Meaning Of…! Thanks so much for agreeing to be here on my blog, sharing the meaning of your songs with my readers.

Today we’re going to talk about one of your recent releases, On the Run.

The lyrics:

I never wanted it to be like this
pulling away from each other’s kiss
someone will always be watching you
all of the time

As a listener (and, well, an author of romance!) this song is pretty clearly about a breakup. Pulling away from each other’s kiss is a poignant and also very vivid description of what it’s like at the end of a relationship when you haven’t yet broken up and yet you can’t quite stomach kissing each other. But the lyric “someone will always be watching you all of the time” doesn’t quite fit with my imagination of the story the song creates.

Can you tell us about the story behind the song? Where you got your inspiration for it, the meaning behind it?

Well that is a loaded question. Haha. Well. It’s a break up anthem. All the big diva’s have them and I wanted one too. Haha.

The lyrics you referred to above for instance, the person I was seeing had trouble being affectionate in public to a detriment. It’s never something I thought I would be faced with in a relationship. I am very comfortable with who I am, and how I act, everywhere I go. I was touring out west in san francisco & wasn’t sure if I was going to stay in the relationship I was in when I got back home.

A lot of people don’t realize that the chorus of the song is everything I needed to hear from him.That he would be “ok” if we parted ways. It’s written from his perspective. Like singing it to me.

The video for it On the Run is so good, but so sad to watch. I love the house the couple’s looking at, but the reminders that whatever happened there has ended is so sad! Of course, I love it, because I’m emo that way.

Can you tell us about making that video and what it was like? How was it different from simply creating the song, and different from other videos you’ve done? How did the story the video tells match or differ from the one you had in your head when you wrote the song?

Well the video is entirely 100% independently done. I could not have done it without the help of my friends. It’s really a dream come true and I’m so happy with it.

There is a lot that goes into a huge production like this. It was a huge learning experience for me on a major scale. Not to mention having to buy make up! LOL, you know…for shine

Before that video was released to the world on August 8th, I did a series called “Satellite Sessions” — an acoustic video blog of songs away from home (See them here:) I would do a song from each city I toured to that month before the video came out. Sort of a teaser if you will…but i don’t strip tease. I did wear a tank top though i think…haha!

The story for the video you see now wasn’t the original treatment actually. The relationship I was in at the time ended a week or so before the video was shot, and I had to scramble to find a leading romantic counter part ASAP! Me and the awesome director Marquise Lee had to sit down again and walk through the house we were going to shoot in & come up with a different scheme altogether. A big reason for that was, over the course of a year I had collected home movies of me and my boo being all couple-y. Halloween, Christmas, long weekends, mornings laying in bed and so on. All that, unusable. However in the end, the final version for the video, treatment, actors, location and so one worked out stronger than its original fabrication.

That summer it was featured at Qfest, the international gay and lesbian film festival held here in Philly. It was part of the Philly shorts program and the very first music video ever featured. The program was voted a festival favorite that earned an encore performance.

As a singer and musician, what do you feel is important about creating a video for your songs? (Back in the olden days of MTV showing videos, they were super important!)
Video today has changed the face of the music industry I think. Even though MTV hardly shows music videos anymore, it’s another facet and creation that can take your composition to new heights and generate a different reality people can escape into.
Video is big. I can sum it up in one word. Youtube.

The video’s been featured on MTV, Logo and Vh-1 – aside from being totally cool, how has this impacted your music? Are you discovering a broader audience from your work appearing on these mainstream sites? How’d you end up getting your video shown there?

I was out touring in the Caribbean and when I got back home I saw a TWEET (www.twitter.com/aidenjamestour) that MTV sent out about my video! haha I thought it was fake a first. But sure enough, there it was on the front page under new indie video, next to taylor swift! Tooo cool. I almost wet my pants.

It also had its television broadcast premier on Logo NewNowNext PopLab this month. I personally don’t get LOGO on my basic cable so a local bar agreed to play it that very night for me and a small group of friends. Of course my video gets on tv and we proceed to have the biggest snow storm in 100 years. Oops. Sorry eastern seaboard. Haha. So, when I was walking to the bar that night my iphone was on shuffle and ON THE RUN popped on as I was turning the corner downtown. I teared up a bit.

One of my other favorites of your songs is Josiah…I can’t decide if it’s about a lover or a cat. I’m not sure which I’d prefer! But the last line haunts me: “Greedy, selfish, Josiah, I am stained.” It makes me think of yearning and longing and all that good stuff I love so much as a writer (unless it’s about a cat, in which case I take it back about the longing and yearning!)—but what DOES it mean?!!! Tell me the story!

That’s too funny. OK. I’ll tell you the story.

Josiah is two songs in one. How I wish things had gone between me and my crush. Then, what actually happened.

Two years ago, I met this crush for a coffee date in Rittenhouse Square Park, Philly. Things were going really well and the connection was magnetic. Not to mention the incredible gorgeous factor. There was hair tossing, eye batting, he’s getting the green light. Then an hour into our date, “Josiah” leans in and says “I have to tell you something. I’m in a open long distance relationship with my boyfriend in Boston. That’s not a problem is it?”

Oh great. I was a bit crushed and thought oh well, so I wrote it off and would define it as a wam bam kinda thing. So that’s exactly what we ended up doing. Cut to us at “josiah’s” apartment on 9th and Pine, getting it on. Shirts were ripped open and it was hot. What I didn’t expect was to be rushed out the door before his roommate got home. She was unaware of “Josiah’s” little arrangement with boyfriend in Boston and I would be the beans spilling out of the can, not to mention a conscience check on the gorgeous Josiah from the park. I left feeling alot of things. Later that very summer, without realizing, I moved in to a new apartment three doors down from the scene of the crime. Oh life.

How do you, as an artist, feel about the interpretation of your work? Do you try to leave your lyrics open so the listener can form his/her own interpretations? Do you ever get surprised by what people think your songs mean? (Umm…like if they mis-hear the lyrics?)

Kinda like how you thought my lyrics were for on the run? (note: I totally butchered them trying to transcribe them by ear!) Haha. It was so cute. You were very close with them. I think most people tend to align a personal experience with the songs they hear. I do the same thing when I listen to music. For instance, Ingrid Michaelson’s song “Mountain and the Sea.» I imagine myself in a mini video of my life along with the words. Or with Brandi Carlile’s song “If There Was No You” I think of my best friend, and it got me through a tour I was traveling alone on.

Gosh, I sound really sappy in writing haha. I’m really fun and animated in life, I promise. So, am I ever surprised at what people might think or interpret my songs to mean? Well. I’m just happy they are listening. It can mean anything you want it to. However, I write from a very specific place usually.

How long does it take you to write a song, generally?

Well, I have come to do what I call the purge and prune method. I puke out all this stuff onto paper or my iPhone memo recorder, usually with my guitar in hand. Then, go back and prune it down so it makes some sort of sense. I don’t really have an answer for you on this one. It’s taken anywhere from 2 hours… to 1 year!

When writing from life, what’s it like to then perform those songs you based on what might’ve actually been a very private moment, and then it’s put out there for the whole world to hear, to make judgment on, to even take for themselves?

It’s liberating and rewarding. I use it. The moments I have in my life or the friends’ lives I do up in song, and I mend the spaces and tie the loose ends up, where real life tends to not be so gracious. It’s therapy really. Cheap, inappropriate, balls out therapy.

From Aiden’s website
With humble upbringings in a struggling working class family, becoming something other than ordinary was not celebrated or encouraged. Aiden refused to accept that and fled to Philadelphia where he embraced urban life, not to mention the local music scene. Currently living in downtown Philadelphia, this talented twenty something is making great strides for a self-taught musician.

Find his music on

and on Amazon

And of course from his site: