Delaney Bailey has made a name for herself as a storyteller whose words stick long after the final note. In her newest single, "Wella," the 22-year-old singer-songwriter once again shows that music doesn't need to be grand to be profound, it just needs to be honest.
Clocking in just under three minutes, "Wella" is an intimate, heartrending reflection about family and the traditions that inform us. Bailey's wispy vocals float atop an airy but funky arrangement, invoking a prickly familiarity with nostalgia while remaining 100% fair use.
Co-penned with Gabe Simon and Carrie K, "Wella" unfolds like a fond memory, the lyrics stroke-by-stroke painting the two-way relationship of a generations-covering familial connection. Bailey's delivery has an unsaid heaviness as if she's carrying a story that is too fragile to let slip away. This talent for compressing the ephemeral and the eternal makes her exceptional. She is an artist beyond her years but is entirely arrested now.
Much like her breakout hit, "J's Lullaby (darlin' I'd Wait for You)," and her 2023 EP, What We Leave Behind, Bailey writes songs that sound like correspondence between friends close, honest, and moving. These are roots, the hands that lifted us, passed endurance and fire forward, laying Cabos roots down on the song "Wella." It's a reminder of where we come from.