Marc Abaya pens an ode to goodbye with debut solo single, ‘Red Bleeds to Blue’

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Themes about farewells have been immortalized too many a time by musicians from all over the world. Often painted in a heartachingly sad hue, tunesmiths tend to portray goodbyes as something unsavory and unpleasant.

Offering his own take on this subject, Kjwan frontman Marc Abaya recently released his debut solo single, “Red Bleeds to Blue” -- a four-minute, guitar-driven masterpiece that tells how parting can be “peaceful.”

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Dusks and Departures

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Abaya’s latest offering is wrapped in a 90s-rooted sound with a haunting, artful melody. Its lyrics is a poetic weaving of words about oceans and dusks, and how they well-represent the idea that departures can be seen in a positive light.

“Shedding off my shell/ So long since I felt/ Naked and broken inside/ Still I smile at dying light,” the 38-year-old artist chants before shifting to the song’s chorus in the latter part of the tune, “As she sails on the ocean/ Farther than anyone’s gone/ Red bleeds to blue/ As I take in the view.”

During his May 22 Wish Bus gig, he shared that the song’s title is actually a metaphor to sunset, which played a significant role in the development of the project.

“It was written two years ago. The song is about a girlfriend, a best friend of nine years,” he candidly told Wish 107.5. “I remember filling [the lines of] the song in La Union where she surfs a lot. I remember the sunset (La Union by the way has the most beautiful sunset). As soon as we’re done, I listened to a song: ‘Gotten’ by Slash...I cried. And that was goodbye for me. The whole experience felt liberating.”

“This is what the song’s about,” he continued. “Goodbyes are nice; they can be beautiful. And the best part of everything is that this woman is still my friend.”

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A Musician’s Mission

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Abaya considers “Red Bleeds to Blue” as a “passion project.”

“Sometimes, you just got to let things out. And we musicians are lucky that we can do it with music,” the singer-actor spoke of his latest release.

Though he considers “everything” as an “experiment,” he is proud that the song “is based on truth.”

“I believe in the song,” the OPM rockstar enthused, adding that he is also thankful to have worked with people he is on the same page with.

“Yellow Room Music Philippines took me in. I got Monty Macalino of Mayonnaise to produce it, we got Magic Montano to sound engineer. They unleashed me. I played all the instruments, and it took two days to record. We wanted it to be as raw as possible -- very grungy,” he recounted.

He also shared that he made a one-minute promotional video for the song, and enlisted director Rember Gelera to helm it.

“It was an underwater shoot. We worked on a Sunday, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. I and actress Tiana Cruz were in a 14-foot pool, and we’re just going up and down. We did a one-minute viral video, and the idea is to get your attention, and subsequently make you listen to the music,” he said.

“We got to let people pay attention to the music, not just on the music video. What matters is the song. At the the end of the day, what we do will fade. Our names will fade, but a good song will never fade,” Abaya uttered, exuding with much profundity, before smoothly spilling his wish as an artist: “And hopefully, hopefully this is a good song.”

Watch his Wishclusive performance of the song, together with indie band, Bleu Rascals:

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