WAKING BLUE
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Meet the piano piece that’s been with me most of my life.
In this solo episode, I share the story behind Waking Blue. A song I began composing at age 13, long before I had language for who I was becoming. From Beethoven to Salt Lake City, from Ensign Peak to Southern California, this melody carried me through moves, grief, queerness, and awakening.
Waking Blue is a piece about impermanence and memory, about the moment (and years) before we fully wake up. I offer the 2011 studio version here: played on a Steinway, wrapped in decades of life.
May it meet you in your own season of becoming.
SUMMARY
In this intimate and musical episode, Alexander Blue Feather shares the origin story of Waking Blue—a piano composition that began in his teenage years as an improvisation on Beethoven and slowly evolved into something deeply personal.
Written on the piano gifted to him by Ida Smith, in Salt Lake City, completed after a difficult move to Southern California, and played countless times for his father’s coaching clients, Waking Blue became a quiet container for transformation and truth.
Alexander reflects on what it means to find your voice through melody before you can speak it out loud, and how music often carries the emotional intelligence we don’t yet have language for. The episode concludes with a studio recording of Waking Blue: a meditation on change, memory, and the beauty of becoming.
KEY POINTS + TAKEAWAYS
Waking Blue was composed at age 13, sparked by improvising from Beethoven.
The piece emerged during a time of personal upheaval, including a major family move.
It remained unnamed for decades, simply living in Alexander’s hands.
His father cherished the piece and often asked him to play it for his coaching clients.
The official title arrived in 2018 when Alexander became “Uncle Blue.”
The song reflects themes of awakening, queerness, impermanence, and becoming.
Music can carry truth long before we can speak it.
Art created in childhood can become a lifelong companion.
Naming a piece of your story can be a healing act.
Grief and beauty often live side by side in creative expression.
Your past doesn’t vanish—it transforms and echoes through the present.
TRANSCRIPT
Meet the piano piece that's been with me most of my life. A song I wrote as a teenager, 13 years old, long before I had language to describe who I was becoming. I began composing Waking Blue in Salt Lake City, Utah, on East Capitol Boulevard, right below Ensign Peak, this gorgeous mountain that we used to climb and hike. And I was 13 years old, and it was an ordinary after school piano practice time for me. And I had been working on a piece by Beethoven for a federation and competition with my teacher.
And I wanted to write a great song. And so I decided to take what I knew and and see if I could make my own version or use Beethoven's what I already knew with Beethoven in my body and fingers and put my fingerprint or my cover or, my heart print and my version. And so I tried and I wrestled and danced with it for a period of time and found a melody on the very piano that I have here in my living room as a oh, there's the song. As a 52 year old. That's fun.
I'm gonna leave that in there. My, two tracks were playing at the same time and one wasn't muted. So fun. And I wasn't just hoping for a song. I was also reaching for a sound that felt like home.
Something honest and something that truly did carry my fingerprint, so to speak. My longing And this living room of my child home, childhood home, is a place that would soon drift into the rear view rear view and become a distant memory. And then during a difficult move to Southern California in my sophomore year, a move that at the time felt like everything was breaking, I eventually finished this song. It would be years before I had the courage to leave the religion of my childhood, years before I could speak the truth of my queerness. But somehow, even back then, this melody carried the emotional intelligence that I didn't yet have words for.
My dad loved this piece. After his one to one coaching sessions in his home office in Southern California. He'd often asked me to come play it for his clients before they left, an offering of beauty and presence to help them carry their breakthroughs into the world. For decades, this piece had no name. It simply lived in my hands.
And then not so long ago, I officially became uncle Blue in 2018. And in that new name, persona, and identity, something clicked, and that's when I finally knew the name and what to call this song, Waking Blue. A piece about impermanence and change, memory and movement, about the moment before you fully wake up. So this is the 2011 studio recording played on a Steinway piano wrapped in everything that I've lived since those first notes and since I recorded this. I offer it now to you with tenderness, with gratitude.
May it find you in your own season of becoming. If something in today's episode moved you, if a phrase stayed with you or a story or the music cracked something open, would you take a moment to help spread the word? Follow Viral Mindfulness, the podcast, on your favorite podcast app. That way, you won't miss a single episode, and I will land softly in your pocket the moment a new episode drops. If you feel inclined, leave a review.
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Yours, Bluely.
