Delaney Bailey on Grief, Growth, and the Art of Feeling Deeply
Delaney Bailey writes the kind of songs that feel like secrets you were never meant to overhear — soft-spoken confessions that carry the weight of entire worlds.
Emerging from Bloomington, Indiana, during her college years, Bailey has quietly become one of the defining voices of modern bedroom folk, building an audience not through spectacle but through startling emotional honesty. Her music — steeped in introspection, melancholy, and the fragile beauty of self-awareness — reads like a diary written under candlelight, each entry tracing the evolution of a young woman learning to exist on her own terms.
Since her debut single “Loving & Losing” in 2020 and the release of her first album (i would have followed you), Bailey’s storytelling has deepened into something almost mythic: songs that dissect heartbreak and selfhood with the same trembling precision. Viral tracks including “j’s lullaby (darlin’ i’d wait for you)” introduced her to millions, but what’s sustained her is the quiet intimacy that she fosters — an emotional language that belongs wholly to her listeners and herself.
Her forthcoming album, Concave, marks a turning point: a meditation on change, grief, and internal reckoning that trades external heartbreak for the slow unraveling of the self. Inspired by Romantic art and shaped by personal loss, it’s Bailey’s most mature work yet — a record that feels less like a collection of songs than a mirror held up to transformation.
In the lineage of women songwriters who’ve made vulnerability their revolution, Delaney Bailey stands as both heir and innovator — an artist who proves that whispering the truth can sometimes echo the loudest.
KP: You were born in Indiana and began your music career during your freshman year at Indiana University Bloomington. Your debut single, “Loving & Losing,” was released in 2020, and your first album, (i would have followed you), came out during your junior year. How do you feel growing up in Bloomington and attending IU influenced your early songwriting and artistic development?
DB: I think that living in Indiana allowed me to grow up with some heavy folk influences in music. A lot of what my friends were listening to was country or folk, and the dramatic storytelling in folk has stuck with me throughout my writing processes. Attending IU itself didn’t have much of an influence on me sonically, but the life experiences that I gained there definitely gave me stories to write about. I didn’t start writing until my second semester at IU, actually — being there and being lonely my freshman year really pushed me to find a creative outlet. I’m glad that this is the outlet that I chose.
KP: Us, too! Growing up with seven siblings gave you a very unique and unpredictable childhood, and you’ve spoken about how it taught you to have a deep sense of empathy and emotional awareness. How have those early experiences shaped the way that you write and connect with music?
DB: Being able to be attuned to what people were thinking has both helped and hurt me. It hurt me in the sense that I tend to read too much into small things, but it helped me in the sense that it makes for great songwriting. The ability to pay attention to my own emotions is a great skill that I’ve developed because of the empathy and emotional awareness that I have towards others — it’s imperative to the songs I’m writing now. A lot of the music that I’ve been writing is about me and the way I feel about myself, which is a huge shift from the rest of my discography. I’ve run out of ways to say, “You hurt me but I still love you.” I’m sure that I’ll find more ways with time, but I have recently moved on to internal observation.
KP: Looking back, what’s the most meaningful lesson or experience you’ve carried with you from your earlier years?
DB: The most meaningful lesson I’ve had to learn time and time again is that everything has the potential to change, and most things will. I used to view this as a very horrific and hard fact of life. It used to be a very horrific and hard fact of life, honestly. I can’t remember one thing that I wanted to change, and everything still would. As I’ve grown older and fallen more in love with myself, change has been something that’s encouraged in my life. I used to be so comfortable sitting in uncomfortable places because they were familiar. I can still sit in uncomfortable places now, but I’m able and willing to choose ones that will inspire growth rather than regression.
KP: You received a life-changing amount of airplay after releasing “j’s lullaby (darlin’ i’d wait for you),” and, like millions of others, it ended up on my playlist for my girlfriend! [Laughs] It really is such a sweet track. Can you share what inspired you to write it initially, and did you have any sense that it would resonate with so many people?
DB: Thank you! I’m so happy that it made its way to you and your girlfriend. Honestly, it was a one-month situationship that didn’t deserve to have a song written about it, but that’s the way that I write music. I have to get it out of my system somehow, and songwriting is a really easy way for me to put my feelings somewhere and just let them live there instead of in my head. I had no idea that so many people were going to resonate with it! I don’t think that I’ve ever really had a gut feeling that a song would do well. I don’t necessarily write with the intention of people hearing it, if that makes sense. Most releases are so embarrassing for me because of this reason — I’m too honest! But it’s working for me and for my fans, so that’s what I continue to do.
KP: To move onto your newer work, congratulations on the release of Concave! I’m excited to dive into it. But before we get into the individual tracks, I’d love to hear about the album on a broader level — what headspace were you in during the writing and recording process, and what was the overall inspiration behind it?
DB: Thank you! It’s hard to pinpoint a specific headspace that I was in, mostly because I was writing this for about three years. I have an archive of demos that I pull from whenever I’m creating a big project like this, and certain ones were songs that I wrote my senior year of college. The common theme behind all of them is me and how I feel about myself. It’s a very introspective and dramatic album. More recently, I’ve also found that it’s easier to create a project like this when the world it lives in already exists. My last EP, Chirascuro, was centered around the Baroque period in art history, and Concave is centered around the Romantic period in art history — I have an art degree. [Laughs] The departure from tradition and focus on nature instead of humans were key factors in building the world Concave lives in!
KP: This new era kicked off with the single “Lion,” whose lyrics touch on feeling pressure around having children and your own uncertainty about that choice.
You said, “As a woman, ‘having children’ is thrown in your face quite a bit. I’m only 24, and I’ve experienced it a lot. I was in a relationship where I knew the other person wanted children, and I didn’t know if I did or not. ‘Lion’ is about not knowing if I want to bear my own children and being angry at others who have this expectation. It’s one of my first angry releases. It’s starkly different from what I’ve done before, so I wanted the first release to pack a punch.”
I really relate to these sentiments, as I’ve never naturally felt drawn to motherhood. I’ve always believed that my greatest fulfillment in life would come from my work and my partner, and long ago I decided that whether or not I have children would be entirely up to my future wife. I still feel that way, and it often frustrates me how women are so personally burdened — and unfairly judged — when it comes to childbearing.
Can you speak a little about what inspired the song itself? Was it drawn from a personal experience, or was it more of a broader commentary on our American culture’s newfound obsession with childbearing?
DB: “Lion” was more drawn from a personal experience, but, of course, America’s current obsession around dumbing down women and the romanticization of being a “tradwife” had an impact on my songwriting as well. My friends and my mom had never once judged me or questioned my apprehensiveness in having a child of my own. I feel as though, at least in my life, the women around me tend to clearly see why I view motherhood in a terrifying light at times. I’ve noticed that online too, but it’s definitely the pocket of the internet that I’m in that’s more accepting and non-judgmental when it comes to opinions on having kids. It was the men in my life that had something to say, hoping that I’d change my mind eventually. Of course I’m allowed to change my mind, but their expectation made me so angry. It wasn’t even something that they thought about before the words came out of their mouths: “You’re too young to know for sure.” Like, don’t say that you know my own brain better than me. I know the women in my life would never say, “I told you so,” if I decide to have my own children, but I can’t say the same for the men, and that’s not a good feeling. So, “Lion” was born from this frustration.
“My advice is: it’s just Instagram, it’s just TikTok. It doesn’t matter. If you like it, it’s more than likely that you’re not the only one who will. Post it, turn your phone off, and read a book.”
KP: I was about to dive deeper into that topic, but that’s a whole other conversation about the systemic control of women that’s occurring with this administration. [Laughs] That’s definitely a topic for a whole other piece! We’d need days to deconstruct that alone.
DB: Dude, for real.
KP: Both “Wake Up” and “Retainer” explore themes of mental health — the former through depression, the latter through anxiety. What inspired you to tackle these topics in your music, and what advice would you offer to women who are currently navigating similar struggles? What has helped you the most?
DB: I think that I was in a very deep hole when I was writing most of this album. I was surrounding myself with people that didn’t know how to help me, and I didn’t know how to help myself. I was stuck in the same coping mechanisms that didn’t do anything but keep me where I was. Telling myself that it was okay — spending the entire day in bed because “my body needed it” — did nothing for me but allow me to stay in bed the next day and say the same thing. Once I was able to get myself out of it, the feelings that I harbored at the time still lingered. I had to write a song about them to just get it out of my system.
On advice, I’m still trying to figure it out myself. Therapy helps with my anxiety, but my depression is still something that I’m attacking daily. I guess my advice is just that you have to want better for yourself, and you have to want it badly. Wanting better and still not doing anything about it — at least in my experience — only results in an anxiety attack. Wanting it badly, to the point where you get up and do something about it, is the only thing that has ever helped me. I tend to do most things to better myself out of fear that I’ll stay in a depressive state forever, which isn’t necessarily healthy. [Laughs] Like I said, I’m still trying to figure it out myself.
KP: Definitely. I think that’s a journey that most of us are on.
I really loved the instrumentation and production on “How To” — it immediately reminded me of mid-2000s Coldplay in the best way, especially the X&Y era. “Talk” is my favorite track off that album, and it gave me that vibe. That’s a major compliment!
It’s a distinct sonic departure for you, but it really, really works. Can you share what inspired the sound of the track and how the song came together during the writing process?
DB: Thanks! I do, in fact, take that comparison as a massive compliment. The producer and co-writer, Grayson Proctor, is the one to thank for that sound. He also worked on “Lion” with me, but “How To” was a completely different process for us. I sent him some sonic inspirations, the PowerPoint I put together for the world that I wanted the album to listen to, and the raw demo of me, my guitar, and some vocal stacking. Finishing “How To” was a long process of him sending ideas over and me giving feedback. He’s a genius and a very large reason why that song sounds the way it does. It’s probably one of my favorites on the album.
KP: You’ve said that your grandmother’s passing made you realize that what matters most is the people in your life. Before her loss, you took an extended break from writing, but the emotions that you were left with after her passing fueled a renaissance of writing for you.
I had a very similar experience after being diagnosed with Lyme disease back in 2018. I had worked from the age of fourteen in the fashion and media industries, and losing everything while struggling mightily with my health served as a massive and much-needed ego death for me. It was the hardest thing I ever went through, but I am so grateful. It changed my life forever and pushed me to become the best possible version of myself, one who valued genuine experiences and helping people over status or success. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade what I went through for the world.
Did that deeply personal realization influence not only the lyrics but also the production and overall mood of the LP? And, if you’d like, what is one thing that you’d like to share about your grandmother? I’m sure that she’d be very proud of this record.
DB: It absolutely influenced the lyrics, production, and mood of the LP. I was in a very melancholic state while making the majority of this record because of her passing. A little before and majorly after her passing, I was taking account of everything in my life that I didn’t like. I was unhappy in the state that I was in, and because I was in that state, I didn’t know how to change it. Since I was diagnosed with depression at such a young age, I have learned to be very comfortable in that feeling. Changing something — even if I know that in the long run it’ll be better for me — was such an impossible thing when I was writing Concave. I was too comfortable in spaces and relationships that I shouldn’t have been in, and they were eating away at me. I was almost a shell. I didn’t know what else to do but write. When I was done writing, I moved, ended a relationship, changed a lot of bad habits, and changed the way that I talk to myself in my head. I still have bad days, of course, but I can confidently say that I’m happy now.
My Wella’s passing is still affecting me. I don’t know that it’ll ever stop, and I don’t know that I ever want it to stop. It hurts, but the grief is a reminder that I once had a very loving, safe person in my life. That is something to celebrate, even if it causes me a lot of pain sometimes. I was a very picky eater growing up, and she was someone that never made me feel judged for having my “safe” foods. “Nightshade” is actually about my ever-changing relationship with eating. Before I’d come over, my Wella would go shopping for food that she knew I’d like and tell me, happily, that she had my favorite things waiting for me. My mom does the same thing for me, still. I love them both so much. Is it possible to love a dead person more every day? I think it is. I do.
KP: I’m still a notoriously picky eater. [Laughs] That is so incredibly sweet.
As someone who is always pushing forward, what has been the most significant challenge in your music career, and how did you overcome it?
DB: The most significant challenge in my music career has honestly been performing live, which is weird because I used to love doing it. I was in concert choir and theatre in high school, so being on the stage used to be my lifeblood. I guess it’s different when what you’re performing is so you. I’m still trying to overcome the difficulties that I have with performing, but some things that have helped significantly are having a great team on tour and writing music that I want to play in front of an audience. I kind of fear the day that I stop being scared of performing. Would that mean that I don’t care as much? That may just be the fear of change thing coming back up again. We’ll see with time.
KP: What advice would you give to your younger singer-songwriter self?
DB: I only started writing when I was a freshman in college, but I would tell her to take guitar lessons. [Laughs] I wish I took them when I was younger instead of teaching myself. I tend to get stuck in certain melodies because I just don’t know many chords.
KP: I took lessons from the time that I was six, and sometimes I wish that I didn’t! Sometimes, when it comes to music, I believe that ignorance is bliss. You can’t unlearn what you have already learned, and sometimes I find that knowledge very confining. We can swap, if you’d like! [Laughs]
What guidance would you offer to women who are hoping to break into music today?
DB: My advice is to not be embarrassed. I’ve noticed, in my generation at least, that a lot of people are so quick to call something cringe and, in turn, are afraid to do something that could be called cringey. My advice is: it’s just Instagram, it’s just TikTok. It doesn’t matter. If you like it, it’s more than likely that you’re not the only one who will. Post it, turn your phone off, and read a book. Anyone who judges you has way too much time on their hands, and that goes for you, too. If you’re judging someone who is just trying to put out art that they believe in — to the point where you have to make it known to them that you’re judging them — then you have too much time on your hands. Turn your phone off. Read a book.
KP: What advice would you offer to women when it comes to life, work, or love?
DB: Everything changes. Learn to find the good in that — dig until you find the good. Dig until your hands bleed. There’s good in the hurt, too.
KP: What do you feel makes a provocative woman?
DB: A provocative woman, in my opinion, is a woman who invokes feeling. A provocative woman makes you question yourself and makes you question the world. She pisses people off. It’s not a monumental task, being a provocative woman — it’s not hard to do. We are, whether it be fortunate or unfortunate, provocative by just existing.
Photography: Alexa Viscus
