Empathy can be one of our greatest gifts. With her new song, Baker Grace attempts to “understand how it feels to love someone who is unaffected by your efforts to make them feel better,” she says. “You can’t always change others or make them see themselves the way you see them. I want to love people and make people happy but not at the cost of losing myself.”
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“I Feel for You” juxtaposes swirling, distorted percussion with Grace’s wispy vocals. I wanna carry all the weight / But you take all the pain I try to steal from you, she coos. I could find a better man / But you’re the only one who can / Bring me back where we began / Boy, I feel for you.
Grace hails from Weehawken, New Jersey, where she observed her father playing piano and guitar growing up. Soon, she found herself gravitating towards writing her own songs. She was only 14, but she had plenty to say. “That’s when I started dealing with these emotions and these thoughts that were really strong and taking a hold of me. Music was the only way to deal with them,” she says.
A deal with Republic Records quickly followed, and it seemed all the stars had aligned. Grace spent the coming years honing her craft and working with such industry heavyweights as Cautious Clay, Stefan Accardo, Scott Effman and Ayokay—setting the stage for a string of singles in 2017 and eventually a debut EP Girl, I Know in 2019. Her second EP, Yourz Truly, arrived one short year later.
Greatly inspired by legendary pop songwriter Linda Perry, whose “authenticity of her songs and the fact that she was never afraid to break the rules and follow her heart” really struck her, Grace channels a similar emotional edge into her own work. Often, she writes her best songs when “I am in touch with myself and in a very clear headspace. I love reading or meditating before I begin to write,” she says.
“I Feel for You” is the latest primer to Grace’s forthcoming third EP, The Show is Over, arriving later this year. “This EP was just really stripped back. I wanted the lyrics, the vocals and the message to be at the forefront. I’ve done a lot of healing over the past two years. I’ve gone through a pretty rough time,” she explains. “I’m ready to just enjoy life. I’ve got one life. I’ve cleaned up a lot of hurt and pain that’s inside of me and I’m ready to live life to the fullest. That’s obviously easier said than done and I’m not expecting it to be smooth-sailing, but I really want to embrace that part of my life.”
