by Beth Kidd
The teenage generation of this time is constantly undergoing many traumatic experiences at this point of their lives. Some of them listen to music to help cope with the pain that today’s society brings. One musician that only a few hundred-thousand people listen to, is an artist named Braden Barrie, who undergoes some of his music as the name of SayWeCanFly. His catch phrase for SayWeCanFly to say at the end of live videos on social media is: “Stay Cozy”. The recent phrase he’s been saying is: “Stay Limitless”. Braden Barrie is a twenty-three-year-old that was born on November 18, 1994. He has black, messy hair and dazzling blue eyes, is obsessed with coffee (he almost always has a mug around him), and loves staying cozy with his hoodies. Braden creates indie pop, acoustic, and “emo” music that resonates with thousands of millennials today. Some of his messages in some lyrics are about break-ups, heartbreak, depression, pain, anxiety, falling in love, love in some kind of form, relationships, and making someone to be a better person. He is known to help with the problems of suicide, suicidal thoughts, and depression. Lyrics of a few of his songs highlight those problems. He often talks about the problems in live videos or posts on social media about it.
On his Facebook page under the About section, it says, “To date, his songs have been streamed over 30 million times and sold more than 130,000 copies.” He has made a huge impact on some millennials. It says, “Braden continually pushes the limits on what it means to write from the heart by sharing pieces of his journey through music.” He has created seven studio albums and many other songs apart from those albums. Braden has toured independently and has performed once at Warped Tour in 2015, alongside many famous bands.
Braden Barrie started his singing career sometime in 2009 after he dropped out of high school to pursue a life on the road. He began creating songs in his bedroom. He is a singer and songwriter from Lindsay, Ontario. Barrie recently separated from Epitaph Records. Braden is making music independently on his own record label, Purewolf Records. Braden created the record himself and just “thought it was a cool name”. He released two new albums called “Limitless” and “Beautiful Mess” on October 19th, 2018 and spent two years prior this working on the music. In total, he created twenty-eight new songs for the albums. Each album has fourteen songs. He worked independently with only a little help from some friends in setting them up and getting sent out. Most of the album was created in his bedroom with only one take. SayWeCanFly is known as a band; however, it’s just Braden playing. He does everything from writing his own songs, mixing them, performing them, to singing them. “Beautiful Mess” is under his name of SayWeCanFly as acoustic music. “Limitless” is electronic music released under his name Braden Barrie. Braden felt that he should “keep the electronic music separate”, because SayWeCanFly is known for acoustic music. He didn’t want to upset his fans and change that image of SayWeCanFly. Five percent of the sales of both albums went to “To Write Love On Her Arms” in support of suicide prevention and awareness. In a quote from a website, Braden said,
If you choose to support my campaign, you are literally helping me create these songs, videos, and the opportunity for them to be heard louder than anything I’ve ever released. Whether you have followed me for years or this is the first time you found out I existed, these albums belong to you just as much as they belong to me. If we can get these out into the world the way that I plan to, it will only grow our potential to leave a positive mark on the universe.
On Spotify music, both of his albums have had thousands of replays. He didn’t post his two new albums on YouTube. However, a different channel, Braden Barrie-Topic, released a couple songs from Limitless and they have around five hundred to eight hundred views. The various artists- Topic channel released a few songs from Beautiful Mess and the views range from seven hundred to 4K.
Braden posted a YouTube video four weeks ago on October 11th titled, “It’s Not 2009 Anymore (life update).” In the video, he talks about what the albums consist of and the journey he’s been through to make the two new albums happen. He says,
If you’ve been there for a long time, thank you. It obviously means a lot to me. I’m always trying to balance, you know, just like making good music and sharing my life as well and just kinda, you know, being a human and being an artist.
Braden usually stays up until two or three in the morning working on new music. Sometimes he takes breaks from social media in order to focus on making himself happy. Someone by the name of Eleanor Curran commented,
I still remember the first time I found your music. I listened to Scars pretty much by accident and I cried the whole time. Since then you’ve been a major inspiration for me and I can’t wait to hear what you have in store for us this time. Thank you for the music Braden.
Scars evoked the same reaction from me. I was a mess by the end of the song. Many people like him as an artist because he connects with his fans and updates them if he’s been busy. Braden is very interactive with his fans by interacting with them on social media, at his concerts, and on live stream videos.
Braden’s music has made an impact on many millenials and continues to do so today. His music video, “Scars”, posted on Youtube on October 24th, 2013 has 2,162,949 views as of November 11th, 2018 at 12:17 a.m. The intro to the video is, “my name is Braden. i wrote this because i am sad knowing that you want to cut your beautiful wrists. because the truth is that millions of others hurt with you that i hurt with you. and you will never be alone in your darkness because we hurt together.” If one scrolls down to the comment section of that YouTube video, 4,608 comments are there. Some talk about how he helps realize that they’re not alone, some say they’re clean from self-harm, and some people literally tell their life story. Two years ago, a fan by the name of LittleLightFromDark commented: “This song helps way better than any psychologist I’ve ever been to. I’ve had a had time with my anxiety, but this makes me feel a little better. Thank you<3”. Four years ago another fan, abbysburnbook, commented:
I used to cut myself, and this song really helped me, so quit being insensitive. Not everyone does it to “fit in” or “seem cool”; some people have serious issues with it. If you don’t know anything about self harm aside from the fact that it’s harming yourself don’t make a fool of yourself and leave an offensive comment. I mean I’ll admit now, it wasn’t actually helping me, I just convinced myself it was, and it’s a stupid thing to do. People who do it aren’t stupid, they’re just sad and looking for a way to cope. We all have our own addictions whether it’s self-harm, eating, losing weight, alcohol, drugs or south park. Also if you’re currently going through self-harm or self-harm related issues, know you can get better, people want you to get better, and help is available, and you can get that help anonymously. Back when it was a serious problem for me, I never thought I’d be able to stop, I never thought I’d find it inside me to flush my blades, and when I did, it wasn’t from an instagram post or someone telling me to do it, it was because I wanted to. So believe me when I say you can make it, I know that any type of recovery looks unreachable, but within that word is “reach” and “able”, so if you reach you’ll be able to make it. I promise.
This comment really resonated with me because I went through the same problem and she has a point. Braden opens the song by, “Those scars on your wrists are the mark of the world, an ocean that’s left you so torn.” His song says that it’s the world that is making the person feel this way to result to hurting themself. All of his videos combined have 19,764,045 views.
In 2016, Jessica Golich from tattoo.com interviewed Braden and asked questions that pertain to who he is and what has affected him in his music. She asked him about what are his favorite tattoos and what they mean. He chose the portrait tattoo on his left shoulder:
This tattoo means a lot to me for a few reasons; the whole idea behind it is the fact that after we are gone, our love remains here. At the end of the day we are all skeletons underneath our skin and our differences subside once we go beyond the surface. I wanted to have two skeletons embracing because nobody will ever know if they are male, female, white, black or anything else.
She mentioned that he had been touring since he was sixteen and asked about his high school experiences. Braden replied,
I went through so much pain & depression but looking back I am so thankful for every experience I’ve had and the people I met. If it weren’t for the few people in that school who supported my music and always pushed me to make more, I’m not sure I would have the same drive I do now. That being said, I did drop out at the start of my last year. All of my friends had already graduated and that was really the only reason I liked going to school. Everyone was pushing me to go to college but the idea of pursuing anything but what I love just made me sad. I just wanted to make music and play shows, so I decided that’s what I was going to do. It took me years and years to turn it into my full time job but I told myself that no matter what it took, I was going to make a living with my art.
Another question that was asked was about the first song he created and what it meant to him.
The first SayWeCanFly song I can remember (aside from the one I wrote about Scooby Doo when I was 9) was called “Breathe”. I wrote this one about my understanding of depression at the time, and it was kind of like telling myself to chill out because I was the one causing the pain by letting thoughts take me over. At the time I didn’t know it meant that of course, but looking back now it always feels like songs show their meanings to me later on in my life. That song specifically though I remember being written at a very dark time in my life. My grandfather had just passed away and he was kind of my best friend at that point, and my parents I believe had just divorced shortly before that. There were just a lot of thing going on that I didn’t understand… and writing songs was honestly what got me through those experiences.”
Another question she asked were about experiences behind his music which reflected vulnerability. “I think the reason I always write from my heart is because I started writing long before I ever had an audience. It’s always been natural for me to write exactly what I feel.I think just feeling alone so much as a kid has given me so much time to question and explore my emotions that it just comes out in my songs. It’s not something I could easily explain, but those songs are all new experiences for me as much as they are for anyone else who listens. Over the years I’ve become very aware that other people connect with those painful and emotional experiences that I write about, which has given me a whole other incredible reason to keep going no matter what. It makes me feel safe knowing someone else understands what I’m feeling.”
Braden is an active listener to his fans. When he goes live on Instagram, he’ll occasionally reply to some of the viewers comments. One time, he posted a link to YouNow, a site where people live stream, and he was live with his former roommate, Andrew Bisante, who is another Canadian singer. I made a comment with the conversation that had both of the men laughing and they remember the conversation if I comment the thing I said,which was “Staycozymin”, on a picture of theirs. October 7th, 2018, Braden made a story on Instagram and I screenshotted it because it helped me get through a rough time adjusting to a new lifestyle, “When anxiety is high and life feels overwhelming, be proud of yourself for a moment. Feel love for a moment. And remember that you’ll find that feeling again sometime. What happens in between is just what happens. You’ll come back to it eventually. Our world is insane and overwhelms us all sometimes. Maybe we are meant to fight harder right now.”When he posts a picture on Instagram, his followers will comment and he’ll respond depending on the content of the comment. His private messages are always open, although he may not answer because he’s continuously working on new music and is currently touring along with the Plain White T’s this month. Sometimes he’ll post drawings that his fans have created for him and he’ll tag them in the photo saying that it’s a good piece of artwork.
His podcasts, “Coffee Thoughts”, give insights about his life and give advice about certain topics. The podcast titled Depression talks about how depression doesn’t have to be there forever because it’s a mindset. If you focus on the shitty things in life, you won’t see the good in things. Society is making you focus on their negative opinions. The podcast number three titled, “My Story” is about how Braden grew up. He grew up in a small town and this shaped who he is. He would come home from school to his parents arguing and he struggled with depression. Braden’s parents divorced when he was twelve-years-old. His family split after, his sister going with his dad and Braden with his mom. He started to live with friends and move around a lot. Braden said everything you go through is a hardship and makes you better. Secondhand Serenade and other bands helped inspire him to start his career in high school. Music was his “safe spot” from then on. He made a YouTube channel called SayWeCanFly and started to use that for his music. A girl he used to work with created a Facebook page for his music and this was what made his career start off. Since then, the internet has been his doorway to connect to people. People started to connect with his music and this made him feel less alone. He realized how important it is to just make a connection with someone. Braden said, “It literally saves me and it made me feel okay.” In his podcast “Bullying”, he talks about finding out how a girl from his high school committed suicide because she was bullied. Braden had experiences with bullying and this made him sad and angry about how people feel the need to bully someone to the point where they want to kill themself. It can push people over the edge to where they can’t come back from it. He added, “Loving someone can fix someone’s life, someone’s hurt.” Put yourself in other people’s perspectives and try to understand why they’re doing something.
He has changed many millenials lives, including mine. I’m a small, thin girl who has been an active fan of his for the past four years, and have been two years clean. I came across the video Scars and immediately started crying. I was going through a tough time because my mother was my only caretaker and when I was fourteen, she had a stroke that paralyzed the entire left side of her body condemning her to a wheelchair from then on. I had to take care of her and it wasn’t very good to have a fourteen-year old taking care of a fifty-year-old woman. That made my depression and anxiety skyrocket. I resulted a form of self-harm and he helped me want to stop. He understands that what we’re all going through is hard, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You’re not alone in the world.
Braden Barrie is constantly working on new music and finding out more ways to express himself whilst trying to be a good figure for others. He shows others that they’re not by themself, they’re “just in a crazy ass universe”. Braden isn’t a perfect human being, as none of us are, but he gives little insights on how to feel better about situations and how to be okay with who you are as a person.