When Mark Tennyson, better known by his stage name Boy Untitled, reached a moment of self-realization, he decided to document exactly what he was feeling.
The result is “Awakening,” Boy Untitled’s new song about moving beyond past pain and accepting the self-love that you deserve. With a tranquil, synth-heavy melody permeating the track while a thumping bass line powers it forward, Tennyson sings about examining his surroundings and finding what he’s been searching for. “Clearing skies around me/ Am I good enough?” he asks. “Got to set this mind free, face-to-face with love.”
In an exclusive statement to Billboard, Tennyson says that the song came to him in a moment of “extreme emotional and spiritual growth in my life,” where he saw his husband and friends learning to take themselves as they were. “I was really inspired by my husband and our core group of friends who I saw doing the same while constantly challenging and supporting each other. Because of this, I’ve learned the power we all gain when we accept ourselves and our process.”
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Another inspiration for the song, he says, was Madonna’s “Ray of Light,” and its message of absolute freedom. “[‘Ray of Light’] sonically embodies this intense feeling and excitement that I felt growing inside of me,” he says. “The video, too, was such an iconic memory from my childhood. The way the sounds and visual all culminate in an explosion of universal love and the human experience directly inspired the emotional momentum of ‘Awakening.'”
Check out Boy Untitled’s stunning new song “Awakening” below: