Good Grief - Grant Acquittal Support Material
Recorded Works - (to be mixed & mastered)
Completed Recorded Tracks (Grant Funding - Work)
The following tracks were recorded across ten paid recording sessions with my collaborator and co-producer, Sam Swain, at Sunset Pig Records, at a studio rate of $500 per day. In addition, I personally funded three extra recording sessions valued at $650 per day to continue developing the project. At this stage, all tracks are awaiting professional mixing and mastering, with TTBWBMH still in active development. The recordings also feature a number of talented session musicians, including Sadie Mustoe (strings), Lewis Stone (drums), and Adyn Young (guitar on Elgin St), whose contributions have helped shape the sonic identity of the record.)
22 & Blue sits within the first act of the album, acting as the catalyst moment that quietly sets the rest of Good Grief into motion. It captures the strange contradiction of turning 22. It's about a birthday that should have felt celebratory but instead became the beginning of an emotional unraveling and the slow realisation that a relationship was slipping away.
At its core, the song explores the loneliness that can exist even in a crowded room. It reflects that uniquely disorienting period in your early twenties, when everyone around you seems to be moving forward while you're trying to make sense of your own heartbreak. The track leans into the confusion, messiness, and quiet grief that often accompanies growing up, especially when reality begins to look different from the future you imagined for yourself.
Breathe is a gentle reminder to find clarity amidst chaos. The song doesn't avoid panic or overwhelm, but instead moves through it, offering listeners a hand to hold as it slowly finds its way back to steady ground. It’s a breath in the middle of the noise.
While the stories within the song become progressively darker, there are small glimmers of hope scattered throughout. Breathe slowly unravels, but never completely falls apart. Even in its most anxious moments, there’s an underlying belief that things will be okay. The song enters the panic but doesn't stay there. It emerges on the other side with a sense of acceptance, calm, and perspective.
I’d love for it to be the second single, as it captures the emotional landscape I want to thread through the rest of the project.
This is one of the darker songs on the album, one of the most cathartic. At its core, it's an emotional release, a place to pour all the love that never had anywhere to go, alongside all the hurt that came with it. It's angry, raw, and unfiltered. A reckoning with the realisation that you gave so much of your youth to someone who never truly valued you.
This isn't a song about grace, forgiveness, or taking the high road. It's about everything that was left unsaid. Every question, every frustration, every moment of heartbreak that never found closure. Written as a letter “to the boy who broke my heart”, the song becomes a space to finally say the things you never got the chance to say.
Inspired by Noah Kahan's ability to balance deeply personal storytelling with explosive emotional release, the track builds steadily toward a massive ending. As the arrangement grows, so does the weight of everything that's been held back. The final moments are less about resolution and more about surrender, a release of every emotion, every piece of closure you never received.
Rather than tying the story up neatly, the song embraces the messiness of grief and heartbreak. Sometimes closure doesn't arrive. Sometimes all you can do is finally let yourself feel everything.
Future Plans
Plans are underway for the album’s first single, ‘22 & Blue’, to be released in September 2026. The track is currently in the final stages of production, with mixing being completed by Sam Swain, funded through the artist’s personal funds. Mastering will be completed by Nic from Panorama in late July to early August, preparing the single for release.
The second single, ‘Breathe’, is planned for release in early 2027 and will continue introducing the emotional world of the album. Alongside the music, Kaylah is developing the visual identity of the project, collaborating with photographer Erosu to capture promotional imagery and working with Sophie Decker on illustrated cover artwork. These visuals will help establish a cohesive aesthetic across the album’s releases, reflecting the themes and emotional journey explored throughout the project.
Elgin St is full of yearning and the bittersweet weight of loving someone who can’t quite love you back. It sits in the moment of descent, and is intentionally two-sided, holding both the excitement of falling for someone and the fear of what that fall might cost.
There’s a thread of naivety woven through it, but also an underlying sense of knowing that gently pushes back against it. The song exists in that tension. It lives in the in-between space before anything is spoken aloud, where everything is felt but nothing is confirmed, even though some part of you is quietly aware of how the fall might unfold.
Influenced by Bridgerton and Lana Del Rey, it steps into a sound world I haven’t explored before, with no drums, and strings. It is a softer, more suspended arrangement that mirrors the strange, fragile atmosphere I found myself in while writing it.
At its core, it’s about the beautiful ache of falling in love.
The Sandhill’ is a song about loss. It's an outpouring of everything left unsaid: the pain, the anger, the confusion, grief and ultimately, the gratitude.
At its core, the song sits in the space where grief and gratitude coexist. It's about mourning what was lost while still acknowledging the impact that person had on your life. Rather than seeking answers or reconciliation, "The Sandhill" is an act of acceptance.
Someday” is a song about hope, but not the kind that comes after everything is resolved. It’s about the slow, messy journey toward acceptance and learning how to feel whole again. It’s not about having all the answers; it’s about trusting that someday, you’ll find your way back to yourself.
Draft Tracks - (to be completed writing)
The Fabric is an example of a text art–driven track, intended as an autobiographical piece. It weaves personal narrative with spoken and visual text elements, forming an intimate prologue that threads memory, identity, and lived experience together.
‘Lonely and Lost’ will sit between Acts I and II, with the possibility of appearing as a transitional piece before Act III. It explores the feeling of loneliness becoming an identity, where the character begins to feel defined by their isolation rather than simply experiencing it. This piece creates space for reflection, connecting the emotional gaps between acts while deepening the audience’s understanding of the character’s internal world and the weight of carrying loneliness as something that feels permanent.
Fire Drill
Changing Skies
Hurts to Hope
Shooting Star
Sapphire Eyes
I came back to me‣Becoming
House of Stone
Promises
Finding the Light
Found my way home
Forgive Myself
Picking Myself Apart
Who Are You
Muddy Water
Tear Stained Letter
Written Works - (still in development/to be recorded
The attached demos are works in progress and remain in development, both in terms of songwriting and recording. Due to limited financial resources, these tracks have not yet entered the recording stage. The recording costs will be personally funded by the artist, Kaylah Thomas, to ensure the project can continue towards completion.
“To make living itself an art, that is the goal ”
— Henry Miller