TRAVIS DENNING - Add Her To The List - Mercury Nashville
Travis Denning has been very consistent about teasing things to come with his next chapter since releasing his Might As Well Be Me EP in 2022, culminating in the official announcement that his debut full-length, Roads That Go Nowhere, will be out on May 24, 2024 via Mercury Records Nashville.
Having already amped intrigue with “Strawberry Wine And A Cheap Six Pack,” “Things I’m Going Through,” “Going Places,” and the title track, “Roads That Go Nowhere,” he now offers the next look at the album with “Add Her To The List.”
Written by Paul DiGiovanni, Bobby Pinson, and Jeremy Stover, the song continues adding definition to the reflective lookback feel that Denning has been presenting over his past few releases, focusing on the wrong-turned moments that have shaped the path of his life.
Over a modern grafted melody that drives the raw honesty of his rich vocal, in list-like fashion he begins to splice the regret filled moments he’d do over if he could; “I'd uncall my daddy that son-of-a-….,“ “I'd leave that best friend black-eye-fist in my pocket,” etc.
However, striking the chorus with a precise lift of his voice that masterfully matches the urgency of the rhythmic pulse, he relays that while he’s coming to terms with the several different things that he’s done wrong, one undeniable regret that still lives and breathes within him is the self-inflicted heartbreak of the one he let get away:
“I know I can't but if I could
I'd make wrong right and make bad good
Turn what I shouldn't into what I should
What I didn't into what I did
Unmake the mistakes ya make
Unbreak all the things ya break
Untake the wrong roads ya take
When you're learnin' how to live
There's a lot of things I'd go back and fix
Add her to the list”
Fueling the second verse with a deep dive into his fractured heart, he painstakingly retraces the actions that led to their eventual demise, the ones which still haunt him today; kissing another girl, writing her a goodbye break-up note, etc.
By examining the bumpy roads of his past from his now perspective, there’s maturity that laces the looking in the mirror direction of the lyric, gripping the realities of how our actions have lasting consequences as he adds another layer to the vulnerable diary of life lessons learned along the way.
(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)