DANIELLE BRADBERY - Younger and Wiser - Big Machine Records

As she’s boldly shown on her recent singles “Monster” and “The Day I’m Over You,” Danielle Bradbery is not shying away from the realness of anxiety induced struggles, opening her next chapter with a pure vulnerability that’s allowed the softened edges of her crisp vocal to hold the emotional power of each transparent word.

Continuing to unwrap similar vulnerability, she now releases “Younger and Wiser.” 

Bradbery opens the song with a cold intro as the backing instrumentation gingerly slides behind her in airy accompaniment, providing an atmospheric vibe while she faces the mirror amongst a swirl of anxiety and begins to question who she is today by nostalgically revisiting who she once was.

She relents to herself through a lens of growth and maturity in the opening verse, “since when do I care what other people say” and “since when am I scared to fail before I try,” before reaching a destination shifting confession just before striking the chorus, “It's like I'd rather quit than risk a fall.”

Playing off the common thread that with age comes wisdom, she realizes through a freeing lift of her voice that the absolute truth is quite the opposite, finding that her richest wisdom came more so through the times of being naïve when she was younger and none the wiser to life’s ever altering moments:

“No one could put out my fire

Damn, I was freer and wilder

Talking to myself, yeah, I was kinder

Never looked down walking on the wire

They say with age, you learn so much

You figure it out when you grow up

Looking back now, I think they were liars

I swear I was younger and wiser”

We see Bradbery’s tonality masterfully shifting into a redemptive flare as the song progresses, refueling herself within the fearless fire of who she used to be by remembering how she used to be so brave, would love like her heart would never get broken, etc.

Life experiences will always inevitably change who we are in some ways, but Danielle Bradbery has expertly reminded us with “Younger and Wiser” to slow down from time to time and remember how reckless, careless, and innocent we used to be. But perhaps even more importantly, to not only remember our younger days but to fully embrace them while letting the heaviness of the worries we’re carrying with us today fall to the wayside in the revisited knowing of who we are.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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