Stray is a Watershed Moment in Grace’s Career

“Stray” will likely go down, alongside “I Don’t Know My Name” (IDKMN), as the most important in her career, and as a reflection of a critical point in her life.

IDKMN recounts Grace’s struggle to take ownership of her self-identity, to cast off the desire to fit in and strike out on her own, trying on different hats, experimenting with identities, taking that first step toward self-discovery.

“Stray” tells the story of where she found herself after three years of living through the results of the decision to live by her own rules and not those of “the game”. It’s about what happened after she’d tried on so many different hats that she no longer necessarily knew who she was any longer and just wanted to stop the world from spinning so wildly. It’s also, of course, a story about what we all go through at some point during that transition from being a child to a young adult, about getting our first tastes of freedom and consequences.

It’s one thing to demand one’s freedom, to declare that you are at the helm of your own life, and quite another to suddenly find yourself alone in your agency, the sudden shock of feeling astray in a darkness you’ve created, and to hear your old-self calling out to you, offering you a way back from this ominous desert crossroads.

It’s understandable to feel the “old you” creep back into your brain, to insist that it should be allowed to take over from the rebel you’ve become, the one whose choices led to such an extreme life, one your friends don’t have to deal with and can’t begin to understand, one so full of complications, consequences, and responsibilities, to the point where you can hear the insistent plea from the periphery, slinking from the wall to the floor, like a ghost;

“I wanna feel the way I used to

I wanna move the way I used to groove

I wanna feel the way I used to

I wanna feel the way I used to”

That’s what I hear when I listen to “Stray”, and it’s pretty much what Grace has said in interviews and in her open-letter to fans that her publicist is making sure everyone has read.

Grace’s songs have always been sophisticated, beyond her years, so it’s appropriate that the one that demarks the transition from childhood to young adulthood would pay respect to that child before moving on, to give it a voice one last time…

I believe that’s the symbolism at play visually in the music video as well. The former-Grace is the one riding the bicycle, as a child would, blindfolded (trapped in the dark, held back from participating in the life that the rebel/maturing-Grace has embarked upon). Eventually, however, the former-Grace crashes and is no more, leaving the new Grace standing witness at the scene of the death, one hand gripping her arm behind her back in act of maintaining self-control.

I’m likely way off and have things reversed as far as the music video is concerned, but that’s my interpretation.

Moving on to the business side of what “Stray” means for Grace’s career, I believe it’s the label finally climbing on board with Grace’s vision of herself as an artist. They’re letting her grow up, not as a teen idol to be worshipped, but as a maturing and evolving artist, one expressing very deep thoughts, and in a way that isn’t immediately digestible upon a first hearing (still trying to decipher “weekly storm”…I’ll need a week to digest it before tackling a full lyric breakdown).

I don’t think the label expects “Stray” to be Grace’s breakout hit. I believe they’re using it as a vehicle to make inroads with her critics, and to begin winning over a new audience. I do believe it will build some momentum for Grace, but that the hit song, as many subscribers already mentioned in yesterday’s comments section of Kaedene’s “Lyrical Grace” song breakdown, will likely be “You’re So Beautiful”. That track is immediately relatable, catchy, romantic, fun and danceable, but not stupid. It’s the kind of song that can please music snobs and those just looking for “a good bop”.

“Stray” then is both a prelude and a requiem at once.

Damn, Grace, you really do have this under control, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t You? I think you do.

This article was first posted on VanderVault’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUxwUey_Hn8&lc=Ugy6HcBzCUzq2ZO33sN4AaABAg