Waiting Outside the Lines

Album: Hold On 'Til the Night (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • Greyson Chance was born on August 16, 1997 in Wichita Falls, Texas and later moved with his family to Edmond, Oklahoma. He is the youngest child of Scott and Lisa Chance. Greyson has had three years of piano lessons, but no formal vocal training.

    A performance by Greyson of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at a sixth-grade music festival was posted to YouTube on April 28, 2010. It was soon attracting millions of views including chat show host Ellen DeGeneres, who saw the clip after Greyson's brother, Tanner, wrote to her show suggesting she watch it. Impressed, Ellen invited the then 12-year-old to perform on her show and on May 13, 2010 he found himself taking his first-ever plane ride to meet the comedienne on her daytime talk show. Two weeks later, DeGeneres announced that she had formed a record label called eleveneleven and she was taking Greyson under her wing as her first artist.
  • This is Greyson's first single, which he debuted on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on October 26, 2010.
  • The song's music video was directed by Sanaa Hamri (Lenny Kravitz, Prince, Sting, Jay-Z, Christina Aguilera) and shot in Los Angeles. The director explained the clip: "With 'Waiting Outside The Lines' I heard and saw Greyson and the piano in different environments. The metaphor of this video is how we're all transported when we hear music."
  • Greyson told MTV News about the clip: "The video ... starts off in a road and then it transforms into a rooftop and then onto a sidewalk and then into the middle of the rain. I like to call it a mini-film. The whole concept is saying that everything in the world can come down on you, but you're still gonna break through," he explained. "Especially when the rain comes down, I'm letting it pour on me [and] I don't care, but in the end, I'm bone-dry and I'm getting through my problem."
  • Greyson told MTV News about the inspiration for the piano with words scribbled all over it, which features in the video. "I was inspired by the Riot album cover by Paramore, with the different words and then the red word that said 'Riot,' " he explained. "And I said, 'That's so cool. I wonder if I can make a piano like that?' So now we actually have the piano with all the different words, and then I've always dreamed of having an inverted piano with black keys and white sharps and flats, so we have that too. It's been really cool. I'm so glad it's there."

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