Stephanie Phillips’ latest release, “Walking the Tightrope,” comes from a very personal place, a place of emotional upheaval, including the death of her brother and her second marriage. They are part of the story behind a body of work that signals her evolution as a songwriter and artist. The heart image of trying to balance conflicting feelings maintains that sense of emotional complexity.
I’ve been walking the tightrope between tears and a smile, and I think it will be this way for a while. The lyrics speak directly to that tension. There’s no trying to make the difficult feelings go away. The song instead acknowledges the space between happiness and sadness. In the line, “cause I know that joy can’t replace despair, and occasionally it seems more than this heart can bear,” the song captures this emotional core. That’s the emotional core of the track, its honesty.
Stephanie Phillips’ songwriting has grown fuller with instrumentation for “Walking the Tightrope.” The songs are richer and more resonant, with more instrumentation than she has used before. The result is a work full of change, personal experience, emotional honesty, and the messy process of moving on.
