Gretta Ray is getting ready to enter her sophomore album era, but before she does that she wants to take a moment to reflect on the journey it’s taken to get her to where she is right now.
“Dear Seventeen” is a retrospective track that captures the highs and the lows of her career, and celebrates the person she’s become from writing “Drive” through to the release of her debut album “Begin To Look Around” and its accompanying sold out Australian tour. This is something that artists don’t usually do, and instead they excitedly just launch into a new era. But what Gretta has done by writing and recording this song is she’s taken time for herself to reflect, and also remind her listeners the wild journey they’ve already been on together and how exciting and rare that is.
Lyrically the track is very intimate, and it feels like a supercut of diary entries from different moments in time. Accompanied by a warm country-pop inspired sonical palette, it feels deliberately embedded in her early material as a little serenade to her seventeen year old self. You can’t help but feel like you’re sitting in a living room with her while she’s singing this song to you and opening up about her honest revelations. There are so many magical, beautiful and honest lyrical moments, so here are a few of my favourite moments from the song;
- “Dear seventeen, reality’s you don’t make money. It’s never been enough to make you want to throw in the towel, honey. But after you break onto the scene, you play arenas as an opener. You tour the states with famous mates of yours, go broke, but it’s the job you held out hope for”
- “Sweet brunette dream, miss seventeen. I could resent you, but I won’t”
- “Dear seventeen, you’ll date a man twelve years your senior. You’re yet to meet, but in a year’s time though you should steer clear”
- “Dear seventeen, we made the album and it did pretty well. And you best believe the writer’s block subsides, there are too many tales to tell”
- “Your best friends stick around, your sister’s proud, and have no doubt you’re still obsessed with Taylor”
“Dear Seventeen” is a poignant good bye to the “Begin To Look Around” era, and a reminder of the growth you can experience over a short amount of time. It’s important to remember to celebrate the highs and lows equally, and take a moment to breathe and reflect. And this is her moment to exhale before the GR2 era begins.