“Follow your dreams”—a phrase often and easily bandied about, but one seemingly more difficult to put into practice. Nashville-based songcrafter Mary Bragg didn’t just follow her dreams, she chased them from a sleepy town in Georgia all the way to The Big Apple.
“I spent my 20s in New York City searching for something bigger than the life I’d known up to that point,” Bragg recalls. “The city pushed me to appreciate rejection and anonymity, being just one of millions of dreamers, sorting through the internal response you experience when someone doesn’t really see or acknowledge you,” she continues. “Having been raised in a small town with a super supportive family, it was just what my 21-year-old ego needed.”
On May 5th, Bragg will release Lucky Strike, a heartfelt, country-tinged collection of observations on life experiences, of which the title track is a prime example. “It’s definitely a highlight on the record,” she explains. “Since it’s a window into the part of my life that made me a better, more curious observer, it felt like the right title for this album.”
Written with friend and collaborator Liz Poston, Bragg sparkles from every angle on “Lucky Strike.” “Small town girl in the big city/Concrete sidewalks full of busy bodies/Never looking me in the eye,” she emotes with her honeyed and angelic vocals against a subtly tense backdrop of reverb-y guitar and minor chords. It’s impossible not to feel the singer’s palpable apprehension of taking such a leap contrasted with the exhilaration of building her own wings and learning to fly on the way down.
Without further ado, Mother Church Pew proudly presents “Lucky Strike,’ the mesmerizing new single from Mary Bragg:
Great song! Great production. Can’t wait to hear more.