Australian pop/contemporary R&B singer-songwriter Quinn Lewis is going to be honest, even if the answer ends up being more painful than the question. In Lewis' new single, "Hanging On," the artist begs to be let go if it seems the relationship won't progress any further. Rather than letting this difficult situation swallow him up, however, Lewis channels his emotions into a catharsis: this heartfelt, airy, dance groove.
Set on a landscape of muted, ethereal synths and punctuated with a punchy percussion, Lewis sings in a crisp tenor with echoing harmonies about a one-sided love that seems to stall. In his case, staying in it is harder than just calling it quits: "Cut me down, won't you/Let me loose, darlin'/Let me drown, baby/[…]Don't just keep me hanging on and on and on."
The music video finds Lewis waking up after a car crash, standing on the hood of his car as rain eventually falls all around him. Another scene shows the singer standing on top of a bed and singing as water starts to flood the room. He's seeing the signs of tension rising and imminent doom all around him — all he needs is permission to let go.
It all sounds rather sad, but the song isn't certainly not a downer. Lewis keeps it upbeat, light, and ambling forward, trusting the fact that he knows he's moving towards something better — closure, or even a resolution.
“I wrote ‘Hanging On’ after having a string of relationships that weren’t going anywhere," said Lewis of the song. "Then I met someone who, pretty early on, felt like it could be something. For the first few weeks, its all fun and games and then you get to the point where those words you never want to say out loud, ‘What are we,’ start to circle around. For me, in this song, I was figuring out for myself the idea that one person could be all in, and the other could fold. I think writing the song actually helped me to put that feeling on the table to her.”
Quinn was born in Brisbane but later moved to Nashville, Tennessee. "Hanging On" follows his first single, “Slipping,” (hit #1 on HypeM), as well as his follow-up singles “In Between” and “Weekend Luv.”
