Track-by-Track: Abby Holliday Invites Us to ‘CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE’ With Her Triumphant & Vulnerable Third Album

Abby Holliday 'CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE' © Grace Holliday
Abby Holliday poses for her third album, 'CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE' © Grace Holliday
Singer/songwriter Abby Holliday takes us track-by-track through her vulnerable, cinematic, and liberating third album ‘CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE’ – an intimate, all-consuming indie pop record of raw humanity, inner reckoning, and unfiltered self-discovery.
Stream: “The Price” – Abby Holliday




Viewing myself through the lens of my dog helps me be a better person.

I had a field day reading through the comments sections on the day Abby Holliday’s third album released.

Authentic… Original… Inspiring… Healing… Honest… Important…

Independently released July 26, CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE hits hard and leaves a lasting mark because it comes from a place of truth – and while our truths can be painful, they are equally liberating. Holliday’s most ambitious release to date is also her most vulnerable and raw, finding the Nashville-based singer/songwriter wrestling with demons past and present, processing traumas and unpacking relationships, and reckoning with herself (and her loved ones) as she dives deeper than ever into what it means to be human: A living, breathing being, thriving on some days, and barely surviving others.

CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE - Abby Holliday
CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE – Abby Holliday
Every little part of life has a little bit of death
Everything you thought was real
was only ever in your head

You can buckle up like, you can get used to it
You can wait around for someone else to fix it
Or you can crack a smile, come on, stay a while
Crack a smile, come on, stay a while
– “​crack a smile come on stay a while,” Abby Holliday

Music like this – music that comes so unapologetically from the heart – is inherently delicate, and yet the songs on CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE are dynamic, energetic, and assertive – larger-than-life, despite their intimate nature. Produced with her longtime collaborator Jon Class, Abby Holliday’s third LP is gut-wrenchingly beautiful and breathtakingly bold: A dramatic fever dream that finds the artist at her absolute best, despite the dark clouds that often surround her.

“This album is called CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE… which is a mouthful,” 27-year-old Holliday tells Atwood Magazine with a laugh – and a smile. “I think the title itself kind of means ‘lighten up’ in a bit of a sarcastic way. I started writing this album, and that phrase came up in one of the songs. And as I continued writing the record, it just felt like a theme that was pretty consistent throughout all of the songs, whether I was talking to myself as I’m singing through some heavy topics, but then also singing to other people and asking them to just sit with their emotions in these songs.”

I wish you were like Father of the Bride
I wish you’d learn to roll your eyes at me
When I do something you don’t like
When I do it just to spite you
Crack a smile, come on, stay a while
I wish you were the coach of the football team
Yeah, like, really cut your teeth
Chase your dreams, find out what it means
To be an actual human being
Crack a smile, come on, stay a while
– “Steve Martin,” Abby Holliday

A longtime Atwood Magazine artist-to-watch and Editor’s Pick – her first two records, 2021’s WHEN WE’RE FAR APART I FALL APART and 2023’s I’M OK NO I’M NOT, were both released to considerable acclaim and praise – Abby Holliday has been carving out her own niche in the indie pop world for three and a half tireless, prolific years. She has been independent since her debut, collaborating with an ever-expanding Rolodex of friends in her adopted home of Nashville (by way of Cincinnati, Ohio), and since day one has approached her art from an unflinchingly candid, unapologetic, and ‘DIY’ perspective.

Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday
Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday



After releasing I’M OK NO I’M NOT in Spring 2023 and hitting the road with artists like Michigander, Phillip Phillips, and Nightly, Holliday returned to the ‘studio’ reinvigorated. She approached her third full-length album with a mission: Whereas her first two records had been both under 25 minutes in length (about half the length of most standard LPs), she wanted this one to be a level-up – in size, in scope, and in sound.

Just for a moment
I’m a child of our divorce
I’m both parents and the kid in the middle of the storm
I still stick up for both sides
But the fault wasn’t mine right?
The fault wasn’t minе, right
All at once, I’m met with my past
It’s like I’m looking at thе bottom
of a looking glass

All at once I realize
It’s not a crime to love somebody
And let it die
If it needs to die
It’s not a crime to love somebody
And let it die
– “The Price,” Abby Holliday

“I knew that I wanted to make a longer record when I went into this one,” she explains. “My first two were each seven songs, which I think are technically albums, but kind of felt like EPs. I knew this one needed to be longer, and it ended up being about twice as long as the last one that I put out. So I think because I knew I wanted it to be lengthy, that gave me room to cover a lot of my life in this album. The last two were more concentrated in a certain timeframe – especially the one that I released last year, because it was a year after my first record, so I was mainly singing about my life within that year and what I had been going through.”

“With this one, I found myself starting to write about the current events in my life, but then I almost started working backwards through college and high school and childhood. I was starting to realize how much these certain events impacted me as a person, and what I believe today and what I’m afraid of and what excites me. I didn’t intend for it to cover so much of my life, but that’s just how it happened as I started writing it.”

Sleeping sculpture
You don’t have to be alarmed if you wake up
And I’m leaning over
I’m picturing you when you’re older
Sleeping sculpture
Hate myself for the others
Couple landslides, that’s what those were
Doesn’t matter
Don’t take it slower




Across its twelve songs, CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE explores a wide range of deeply relatable topics.

Holliday is an open book on everything from depression, anxiety, insecurity, and self-doubt, to love (in all its forms), working on one’s own emotional volatility, and finding comfort in vulnerability. For Holliday herself, this record feels like her most mature body of work yet.

“Each record has felt a little more mature… this being the third one, I think I can take a look at the first two and even sonically see how I’m changing,” she muses. “But also there’s similarities. I would almost say that this record is kind of a combination of the first two in terms of where it went with production. There’s some very organic moments, but then also the weird glitchy stuff that I love. In terms of themes, it feels heavier than the other ones, but it feels like me more than anything that I’ve made before.”

Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday
Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday



Songwriting has long been a form of therapy for Holliday, who often turns to music and writing as a means of understanding herself and making sense of the world.

Her latest album is perhaps her most ‘therapeutic’ record yet.

“I wrote this whole album mostly by myself,” she explains. “A few of the songs I would bring to Jon and they would be either mostly finished or we needed to rearrange some structure things or whatever. And then my sister Grace was on ‘Butterfly Song’ (more on that below), but besides that, I didn’t write any of these songs in a room with another person, which I have done with my previous two albums. It wasn’t really intentional – but the more I was writing, I never felt like I could bring these songs to anyone, or even that I needed to.”

“I really felt like I needed to write it by myself. And I don’t think that will be the case for all of my music. I would like to collaborate with people, and I do enjoy that. And we did have people help on this album, but just in different ways. Like, we had my friend Corinne played horn, Collins played the strings. But in terms of the writing process, I held everything really closely to my chest this time around, and I’m glad I did. It felt like I needed to.”




Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday
Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday

This sense of intimacy contributes to the album’s profound and deeply personal weight.

From the moment “Earth-Eating Tree” sets the scene (“Lay my innocence to rest, maybe it’s all in my head. I don’t feel anything yet, wake me up when I am dead,” Holliday sings) to the final stirring, restless, and unsettling seconds of album closer “Spiral,” CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE treats listeners to nonstop array of reflections and reckonings, dreamy reveries and turbulent upheavals. Highlights include singles like “The Price” and “Immortal,” which highlight Holliday’s ability to blend the catchy and cathartic into one, as well as deeper cuts like the dreamily visceral “at some point you’ll have to be angry at all of this” and the sonically charged, achingly intimate “Steve Martin.”

Holliday has plenty of personal highlights as well. “‘Spiral’ is definitely a favorite,” Holliday says of the six-and-a-half minute finale. “I hope everybody listens to that song. I know it’s a 12-song album and there’s the factor of losing people’s attention spans, but I hope they make it to the end of the record, because that’s the one I hope people listen to the most. And out of the singles, ‘Sleeping Sculpture’ might be my favorite. I love that song.

As for her lyrics, Holliday cites the second verse of “The Price”: “‘Just for a moment, I’m a child of our divorce. I’m both parents and the kid in the middle of the storm.’ I love that line. I love that imagery of thinking about a certain situation from every viewpoint possible. And the chorus of ‘Spiral’: ‘Flowers from my last bad day haven’t even rotted away, they haven’t had the chance to.’ That one really sticks out in my mind. And it’s very simple, but the bridge of ‘Immortal’: ‘Don’t turn out the light when I’m in the room. If you’re gonna die, you got to take me too.’ I love that imagery as well. Those are some of my favorites.”

You keep stealing all the covers at night
At first I didn’t mind but it’s starting to feel personal
I don’t wanna ruin your time
But if I’m naked and cold
And you don’t know I’m alone
I’m gonna spiral…
I tried saying what I need
Turns out it’s just embarrassing
To make you aware
I’m unraveling, ah
The flowers from my last bad day
Haven’t even rotted away
They haven’t had the chance to
The flowers from my last bad day
Haven’t even rotted away
They haven’t had the chance to




Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday
Abby Holliday © Grace Holliday

For Holliday, this will forever be an album marked by intense self-discovery, self-realization, and self-actualization.

“I think your mid-late twenties are filled with contemplation and asking real questions,” Holliday says. “Why am I the way that I am? How did the way I was raised still impact me today? Did I ever fully process that thing that happened to me? What’s my purpose? Am I always going to feel this way? Why do I feel this way?

All these questions and more contribute to an album that, like so many people have already said, is authentic, original, inspiring, healing, honest, and important. Holliday herself has plenty of takeaways as well.

“I think I’ve learned that if you’re scared to say something, maybe you should,” she shares. “Not always. With good intentions, please. But, at least for myself, I wrote a lot of songs that I have been afraid to release, but not afraid enough that I am going to not release them – like, I wouldn’t change anything about what I wrote, or about what I communicated and how I said it. I think I’ve learned that if you feel alone in a feeling, you probably aren’t. Sharing those songs has taught me that, for sure.”

“For listeners, I hope they can find their own meaning and see themselves in these songs. A lot of what I’m singing about feels so specific to my life, and it is. But also, I know that it’s going to relate to others as well, and that’s what’s beautiful about writing music, so I hope people listen with an open mind and let themselves feel the weight of what I’m saying. I hope they crack a smile and I hope they stay a while.”

Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Abby Hollidays’s CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE with Atwood Magazine as she takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her third album!

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:: stream/purchase CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE here ::
:: connect with Abby Holliday here ::
Stream: ‘CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE’ – Abby Holliday



:: Inside CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE ::

CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE - Abby Holliday

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Earth-Eating Tree / crack a smile come on stay a while

“Earth-Eating Tree” was written after I had a pretty profound experience in October of 2022. I had a bad trip that kind of just changed a lot in me from that point on in terms of some anxiety and things like that. But that whole song is kind of taking the listener through that day of the bad trip and reality is starting to become blurred and things are starting to feel scary. That moment and that day just felt really important in my life. Even some of the themes on the record, some of the visual themes that you see throughout a lot of the videos and things that we took are in reference to that day and that song. There’s a reason that that song transitions into “crack a smile” which is singing about some of the anxieties that maybe were already within me. And then this bad trip kind of made them arise to the surface in ways that I just wasn’t really ready for at the time. And yeah, that’s kind of what it’s about. [laughs] I’m trying to think if I wanna say anything else. Yeah, just fear. Fear is the main theme in that song. And the second track is acknowledging that fear.

Steve Martin

“Steve Martin” is the song that birthed the album title. It’s one of the first ones that I wrote for this album. The chorus is singing about feeling distant from someone and kind of pointing out that it seems like they’re sort of in their own world and how I wish things were were different. And that’s where the phrase “crack a smile, come on stay a while” came in, kind of just asking someone to lighten up and maybe take things a little less seriously. And as I get further into the song and into the bridge, that’s where I kind of turn the meaning around back on myself, if that makes sense. As I’m asking this person to lighten up. I’m also just as much asking myself to be that way as well. And there are some Steve Martin references throughout the first couple of verses, and that’s where the title comes from.



Immortal

I believe this was the very first song I wrote for this record, which was fall of 2022. This song is about the fear of death, which I never really had until meeting the love of my life. Death was never a thing that scared me or kept me up at night. And I think there’s something beautiful about meeting someone that you can’t imagine your life without. And that is very much what happened to me. I found myself, like as I was falling in love, I found myself having these sort of irrational fears or anxieties surrounding death and losing this person. I know that I’m gonna be with this person forever and the only thing that could take me away from them is them dying, [laughs] which is a bit of a dark thought. But, even just talking to some friends about it, it was comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one who has those fears.
I think up until now, I never had something that I was that afraid of losing. My husband would know that I was having these fears and he would just be joking around. He is like, “you don’t have to worry about anything. I’m immortal. I’m gonna live forever.” We also say that about our dog. She’s gonna live forever, [laughs] so that’s kind of where the song started out, this little joke between him and I. I feel less afraid of it now. I think writing the song helped me just acknowledge those fears that I was thinking about and maybe like hyper-obsessing over.

Sleeping Sculpture

“Sleeping Sculpture” feels like a continuation of “Immortal.” There are similar themes in terms of the fear of losing someone and kind of idolizing someone, even just the term “Sleeping Sculpture”. One night I was just like laying in bed next to my husband and I was, I just looked at him while he was asleep. I just thought of how we met and how we’re hopefully gonna grow old together. And just knowing that life will bring a lot of change and ups and downs and I’m gonna have this constant person in my life. How cool is that? That we’re gonna grow together and change together and even separately in our own ways.
That song is kind of me looking back at previous relationships and realizing that I never really knew what love was until I experienced it more recently. And a bunch of new feelings arise with being in love, like for the first time, and just new insecurities and things in yourself that won’t be present unless you are living with someone even. One of my favorite lines off of the whole record is in that bridge. It says, “There’s things about me that I think we’re gonna learn at the same time,” which is just acknowledging that I’m still growing, I’m still changing, and I’m learning so much about myself as you are learning about me, like in real time. And there’s something comforting about that and also vulnerable.



The Price

I love this one. “The Price” was one of the last songs that I wrote on the record, and it was about an experience that happened right around that time. I ran into somebody from my past that I hadn’t seen in such a long time in a very unexpected context, and it was an extremely short interaction. And in that time span, I just felt so many things. When you see somebody from a different period of your life when you’re not expecting to, it kind of just takes you back to those days and how you were in the context of them and how you were as a person. I went home and I wrote “The Price,” and it’s singing about relationships and like romantic relationships in particular, and how I kind of just realized you don’t have to look back at everything that hasn’t worked out and view it in a negative light.
It can be something that changed you for the better. And that’s kind of the line that says it’s not a crime to love somebody and let it die if it needs to die, is just stating the facts. I can be in a relationship and it can end and that can be a good thing. And this person and I don’t have to feel anything negative towards each other. And simultaneously, there’s so much unspoken history that we will never acknowledge because there’s no reason to acknowledge it. I saw Past Lives. Have you ever seen that movie? Holy Cow. I saw that movie shortly after this interaction happened. And that movie is just so beautiful and has such a real way of showing what it’s like to love somebody and let it die. Also similar to that, the ending of La La Land, those two movies like I feel like this song could fit in either one of those movies. It just kind of leaves you with an ending that on the first watch maybe you’re not satisfied and you’re like, oh, why didn’t they get back together? Or like, oh, I thought something else was gonna happen. And I feel like they just portray such a real part of life that not many people might wanna acknowledge or think about. ‘Cause it feels kind of messy in some ways.



Couch Comrade

“Couch Comrade” is about my dog, Banana, I was writing this album and everything was really serious and really heavy. I was kind of narrowing down the songs that were gonna be on the record and thinking through the track list and everything. And my husband kind of jokingly said you should write a song about Banana. And I was like, okay. And then I never really said anything. And then I did write one, it was actually a different song than “Couch Comrade” and I didn’t feel great about it. It was cute, but it didn’t really feel like it belonged on the album. But the phrase “Couch Comrade” was in a verse of that song. And something about that felt really cool to me.
So then I ended up pivoting and writing a whole new song. I love that some people will listen to it and not know that it’s about a dog, it very much can feel like it’s about a friend or a partner or whatever. But to me that song is like the glimmer of hope on the record. It’s just about how she is such a constant in my life, it sounds silly ’cause she’s just a dog, but she’s so important in my routine. We take her on walks every day and that’s something that gets me out of the house and is just a healing moment. And she loves me no matter what I do, I can just walk in the door and she’s so excited to see me… almost viewing myself through the lens of my dog helps me be a better person. ‘Cause I think sometimes I can be pretty down myself. So thinking about her viewpoint of me and her experience of me is really sweet.



Think Before I Speak

“Think Before I Speak,” to me, feels like one of the heaviest songs on the album. Throughout the verses, I am exposing myself or my flaws or what I view as my flaws. Things about my character that I feel like I either don’t have fully figured out or yeah, just my little imperfections, and the second verse dives into comparing myself to my partner. And then the chorus is asking, why would you want more of anything that’s in me, which is basically just saying like, I am seeing these things that are wrong with myself, yet you love me. Why? Which feels heavy and dramatic. But I think the season of life that I was in and the headspace that I was in, especially when you’re in more of a depressive state, it can be hard to see the light and hard to even comprehend why other people care about you. Yeah, and just trying to be the person that I think they need me to be. That’s what that song is about.
Another fun fact about that song is when we started recording it, it was gonna be like a rock song. But cool, kind of boygenius vibes, like some of their more upbeat stuff, it was gonna have this lead guitar part that is now played on strings and it was gonna be like this upbeat tempo. We recorded the drums for it. That’s how we started the song. And then I played electric guitar while that was happening. And then we went into the studio the next day to flesh it out even more. My producer and I were both just like, something about this doesn’t feel right. And Jon was like, why don’t you just like play it on acoustic really quick and sing it. And I did that. And we were both just like, okay, this is how it needs to be. It needs to be more of a chill song. And the day that we did drums, we also recorded “Steve Martin”, which is very much a big rock song. And I think because we were already doing drums, I was like, this song would be great as a rock song, an upbeat thing. Let’s just knock out two of them in one day.
But I’m so glad that we pivoted and listened to our gut instinct, just knowing that it needed to be a little more somber in its tone. I think part of me honestly wanted it to be more upbeat and rocking because the lyrics were so weighty to me at the time. ’cause if you hide it behind a good beat maybe it’ll be more digestible, which I like to do anyways with some of my music. But I’m really glad that we listened to ourselves.



Andrea

“Andrea” is about a friendship.  I have a very close person in my life named Andrea, and she is just one of those people that has impacted me in more ways than she could know. Her and her husband taught me guitar and they were very instrumental in my musical upbringing. And then also just amazing friends and teachers in some ways. The song is looking back on memories with her, that really impacted me and stuck with me as I went through a lot of change in my life and in seasons in my life where I felt super unsure about things. I could look at Andrea, who always seems to be so sure of herself and I could just feel confidence in her, if that makes sense. I just believed everything that she said ’cause she’s such a sincere person and the chorus is talking about the feeling of being lost.
The chorus says I’m a shell of the girl that I was once before, but the water’s passing through me. I’m a hell of a girl for swimming out past the shore, but my feet cannot touch the ground. Some days I wish I could go back to the shallow end with Andrea. Thinking back on memories with her, it just felt like home. And I think in the past couple of years that I’ve been writing this album, there have certainly been moments where I’ve felt very lost and far from where I used to be. And so this song just sings about somebody that was constantly there for me.



at some point you’ll have to be angry at all of this

Another mouthful. This song was the hardest song to write on the album. It was so spaced out. I wrote so many verses for the song, I don’t even know how many I wrote before I narrowed down which ones to keep. There was a night where I was having dinner with a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, and we were talking about grief and just different changes that she was going through in her life, and she told me a story of something that happened to her many years ago. I think she was processing through some hard things that she was going through at the time. And a friend told her at some point, you’ll have to be angry at all of this and that phrase just stuck with her, and as soon as she said it, I felt something in me change.
I started recalling so many different experiences I’ve had and things that maybe I’ve never even fully processed or allowed myself to be angry about, ’cause I think what her friend meant by that was at some point you’ll have to acknowledge all of this. You’ll have to let yourself feel the pain that has been done against you, that you just have kind of been pushing to the side. And I think that’s true for every single person. I’m sure we have all gone through things that either we’ve never fully processed or we haven’t wanted to, and we’ve shied away from it for whatever reason. So then I wrote that song and I had a lot of different things to be like angry about. I found myself having a hard time honing in the theme, ’cause I knew that I wanted the song to get to that phrase at the bridge, but I didn’t wanna just sing about things that I needed to be angry about.
I wanted there to be some sort of theme. And I think that theme is pretty apparent to me. The verses are singing about three very different experiences that I had with different people. The first one being when I was 13, the second one being when I was 16, third one being when I was 19. I’m pretty far removed from all those situations. I’m 27 now, but they all held this certain weight to them to where I can look back and realize, whoa, that really affected me and impacted me. And it’s part of the reason I am who I am today. And those situations still make me emotional, which I think shows that I didn’t fully allow myself to feel what I went through. Yeah. The first verse in particular is pretty heavy. And even since I’ve put it out, I’ve had some people message me saying like, this song helped me in this way. And kind of just opening up about their own experiences, which is really sweet that I think people are even just given permission to process through those types of things.

Butterfly Song

“Butterfly Song” is one of my favorite songs on the album, it is kind of like part two of “Ohio Laundry Room”. It’s about my grandmother who passed away a couple of years ago at this point. And ever since she passed, butterflies have been like a big symbol for my family and I. We had a celebration of life for her with close friends and family. And that was about a year after she passed away. So it was while I was writing this album and at this celebration, all of the grandkids read a little speech that we wrote about her and about our time with her. And on that day there was a butterfly that was flying all around us and it landed on every single one of the grandkids, which was wild.
How often does a butterfly land on you at all? Not very often. And so the fact that it landed on every single one of us just really felt like she was there with us that day. And in my sister Grace’s speech, she wrote just a really moving speech and part of it was, what became the chorus of this song. She said, I cry in public for you and I don’t apologize ’cause you’re worth every tear. It just really stuck with me and I just remembered it and kept thinking about it for a long time after. And then I ended up writing the song and I incorporated the part of her speech into the chorus, and she had no idea. And I texted her and I said, Hey, you’re gonna be listed as a co-writer on this song that I wrote.
And she was like, what do you mean? And I was like, I wanna show you in person. But just know that you’re gonna get writing credit on this. And she’s like, what do you mean? We didn’t write a song together. So that was really cool just to show her and to show my whole family. Yeah. It was really sweet. It ends with the same melody that is from “Ohio Laundry Room,” which is kind of just a callback to that song.



Spiral

“Spiral” is six and a half minutes long, which I love. When I originally wrote it, I think it was about six minutes, and I brought it into my producer and I was like, this might be too long. I don’t know if any of this can be cut out, if we need to trim it in any way. And not only did we end up keeping everything, but we ended up extending it even more, which I love. I’ve never made a song that long, but it just felt like the perfect way to close the album. Kind of a longer intro and a longer outro. I think “Spiral” encompasses so much of what I’ve already sang about on the record. I wrote it during a time where I was not doing very well mentally, and my husband bought me flowers, and because I was having a hard day.
And then a couple days later, I had another really bad day and I looked at the flowers and I thought, these haven’t even gone bad yet. He’s not gonna go get me more. He doesn’t need to get me more, but he’s not gonna get me more because these haven’t even rotted. Just recognizing that the space of time between the bad days was getting smaller. Yeah. Again, I think about that in the context of being with another person who loves me and who understands me. And how sometimes that can almost be more painful in a way, being loved and knowing that they’re gonna see you go through hard times.
My friend Collins played strings on it. He played strings on a few of the songs and just made it sound so pretty, which I love. Yeah, I don’t know. I think that’s maybe all I have to say about it. It feels very heavy and a little bit hopeless. The way that the record ends, like the final words you hear are, it’s okay, you don’t have to, I’ll be good in the morning. And the words you hear before that are you always gonna fix me up and calm me down? When’s it gonna wear you out? Which is just acknowledging that I’m having a hard time and if I keep having a hard time, is that gonna be okay, if I don’t get better? It kind of just goes down into the depths and ends there, but I think that’s the perfect way to end this record.
I feel like a lot of these songs are concentrated feelings and moments in time. “Spiral” was written about a time in my life, but more so like a day and a realization and a moment. And that’s part of the reason that we used a picture frame for so many of the visuals. It represents being trapped in this moment and in this feeling. I think some people might hear my music and think, whoa, this is a lot, this is sad, this is heavy. And it is. And simultaneously, that’s not all of who I am. I think these feelings arise and I like to sit in them and I pull everything I can out of them into the song. And that’s very much what the last song on the record feels like to me.

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:: stream/purchase CRACK A SMILE COME ON STAY A WHILE here ::
:: connect with Abby Holliday here ::



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? © Grace Holliday

Abby Holliday Pays “The Price” in Her Cathartic, Achingly Intimate Anthem of Acceptance & Letting Go

:: REVIEW ::

The Infinite Ache of “Immortal,” Abby Holliday’s Gut-Wrenching Love Song

:: REVIEW ::



Abby Holliday’s ‘I’M OK NO I’M NOT (Deluxe Edition)’ Is an Intimate & Cinematic Expansion

:: TRACK-BY-TRACK ::

On ‘I’M OK NO I’M NOT,’ Abby Holliday Soundtracks Her Quarter-Life Crisis

:: INTERVIEW ::

Abby Holliday’s Breathtakingly Beautiful Debut Album ‘WHEN WE’RE FAR APART I FALL APART’

:: FEATURE ::

:: Stream Abby Holliday ::



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