Grace VanderWaal, the global superstar singer-songwriter and actress who’s been redefining growing up under the limelight, is out with an anthem that is essentially a sunbeam bottled up. Out this week through PULSE Records is “High,” her new track that’s not so much played but is instead felt, seeped into, blooming within you like memory itself.
Born from an unplanned studio session, the ballad was sparked by a spontaneous line VanderWaal hummed into the room: “Do you wanna get high?” What could have been a throwaway phrase quickly transformed into a meditation on life’s most delicate treasures, the fleeting, perfect moments that feel timeless, even as they slip through our fingers.
A Ballad of Nostalgia and Soft Summer Breezes
“High” glides on gentle imagery, front seats, porch lights, white sugar in iced tea, painting a world both intimate and cinematic. VanderWaal’s voice, tender yet weighted with wisdom, folds nostalgia and longing into something ethereal. It’s not just a song about remembering, but about reliving, as if she’s cracked open a window to those sacred pauses where everything in life feels suspended.
The lyrics, subtle but piercing, echo the breathless awe of youth: “my breath starts to slow, in the front seat, saying man it’s been a long time.” Listeners are left with the sensation of lying in golden-hour haze, where love, friendship, and the ache of impermanence collide.
Grace Speaks: That Special Moment
A month ago, I went into the studio without any idea what I was going to write,” Grace revealed the origins of the song. “I was just humming this, ‘Do you wanna get high?’ and from there the concept came up to create the song about those instances where everything is already great. and then someone looks over at you and says, ‘You know what would make this better’?
It’s this blend of casual honesty and poetic depth that has made VanderWaal one of her generation’s most magnetic storytellers. “High” is less about substances and more about the intoxicating nature of connection, of existing in harmony with a moment so pure it almost feels unreal.
The Post “CHILDSTAR” Development
The new track comes fresh off the success of the critically acclaimed second album from VanderWaal, CHILDSTAR, out this past spring. That album was her most ambitious, most intimate work to date, the exhale of scars healed and skins shed. Whereas CHILDSTAR was the liberation, the rebirth, High is the sweet inhale that comes next, gentle but no less strong.
Grace VanderWaal has always been an artist comfortable existing in the spaces between, between childhood and adulthood, sorrow and euphoria, exposure and strength. With “High,” she reaffirms that she’s not so much composing songs, but she’s documenting emotions, capturing the atmosphere around us in bottles, so we have an outlet by which to inhale them whenever we need them most.
Listen Now
Grace VanderWaal’s “High” is out today. Her sophomore album, CHILDSTAR, is out globally.
