Shining a light on the shared sadness that is grief from losing a loved one. This past week, ’90s rocker Melissa Etheridge teamed up with the great Chris Stapleton for a beautiful new duet called “The Other Side of Blue,” which they wrote together in Nashville.
The subject matter tackles grief, and was inspired by the loss of her son, Beckett. She told People that she typically doesn’t do duets, but she was drawn to Stapleton’s “writing, his view and his voice,” and since she had never met Stapleton when she had the idea to get him on this song, she had her manager reach out, and he quickly said yes, which “thrilled” her. Ethridge headed to Nashville, and they sat down together, talking about their lives, their wives, their children, and of course, their shared love for music of all genres.
She has four kids, and Stapleton and his wife Morgane have five, so they had a lot in common from a parenting aspect:
“I talked about my four [kids] and how I have three now, and I said I’d lost one to opioids. And he said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no, he was my greatest teacher. I’ve learned so much from him. And Chris looked at me and said, ‘Wow, Melissa, you talk in song.’ And that’s the first line of the song, ‘Sometimes I listen when she talks in song.’”
Her son Beckett died at the very young age of 21 from an opioid addiction in 2020, and she has three other children, and as they spoke about the grief of losing a child so tragically, the song just fell out. This song is part of Etheridge’s 17th studio album Rise, and the lyrics paint a beautiful and honest picture of what it’s like to go on in life without someone you love. It’s hard, it’s miserable, but there is “brighter on the other side of blue”:
“Somehow, I’m here, there, and everywhere
And I’m well aware that I’m lost at sea
Nowhere always feels like home
Reminds me of the ways I’m gone
Someday, there’s an old dog and a rocking chair
And on my face, a starlight’s kiss
I’ll think of you and fall apart
Teardrops of a mended heart
Oh, living in the minute
We’re loving every moment
Oh, knowing that the sun will rise and set here in my mind
There’s such a thing as dreams that won’t come true
But it’s brighter on the other side of blue”
Ethridge adds that at an older age now, she’s able to use all of the pain from her own personal life to inspire her music:
“I’m 64 now, and I think I’ve lived a lot of life and I’ve seen things come and go. I think I can say I have a bit of wisdom now, and I see a lot of the fear and pain that my world is in, and I want to inspire, because I know how much can inspire.”
Of course, anytime you put those incredible Stapleton vocals on a song it just becomes that much better, and this is no different.
You can listen here:
