Kailey Nicole pens a heartfelt letter to her 16-year-old self with her new song. “Aim a Little Higher,” co-written with Mikal Blue and Brett Pemberton, seeks to impart a bit of wisdom through plenty of cheekiness and charm. I wrote a letter to the old me / The girl that used to think / Love’s a simple recipe of sweet tea and harmony / How dumb could she be, she sings, fully owning up to her naivety in the past.
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“I wrote a page about that one guy / Who had a little devil in his eyes,” she continues over sparkling pop-country production. “He’s buttering you up and telling charming little lies / He’s got a thing for double lives.”
“Aim a Little Higher,” the follow-up to “One More Time,” released last month, is one of those songs that “seemed to come together so quickly,” Nicole tells American Songwriter. “This was one of those tunes that felt as though it simply fell into our laps from thin air. We wanted to create a quirky and clever style with the lyrics, and I’m really proud of what we created.”
The accompanying visual, premiering today, embraces the lyrical quips in a way you may not expect. Co-directed by Jensen Vinca and Lindsay Sunada, the music video lifts the soapiness of such dating shows as The Bachelorette with Nicole starring as the bright-eyed and hopeful lonely heart. “I told [the directors] I wanted an idea completely out of left field, and they most certainly didn’t disappoint,” says Nicole.
Various male stereotypes, including the guitar-toting TikTok musician, a Zack Morris (Saved By The Bell) lookalike who studies Yoga, a self-described magician, and a stock trader with “dad’s money,” all vie for her affection. In salacious reality TV fashion, Nicole goes on several dates and soon learns that no man could possibly be worthy of her affection─at least, not the kind of man who does dating shows.
“Momma won’t tell you and your daddy didn’t say / You’ll get love in fleeting glimpses / But it always fades away,” she advises on the chorus. “Before ya put a diamond on that pretty little hand / Make sure you got a prenup and a decent piece of land.”
Splitting her time between Nashville and Los Angeles, Nicole has an affinity for the classics, from Patsy Cline to Johnny Cash, which soundtracked much of her childhood. Her own work clearly leans modern, yet it adheres to country storytelling traditions. Following the release of her debut EP, Nashville Stick-Up, when she was 16, Nicole decided to take a step back and get a degree from the University of Southern California. Her second EP, a self-titled six-piece, arrived in 2020.
Now, with “Aim a Little Higher,” Nicole eyes her third EP, produced by Blue and Pemberton
