Kids are going back to school, and there”s less than a month left until the first day of Fall, but it”s not too late to declare 2015″s song of the summer.
Andy Grammer – the upbeat guy who brought you “Honey, I”m Good” – dropped a single today that sounds like song of the summer material. “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” is his catchy, danceable new tune with a funk vibe to it.
It”s a song that celebrates Grammer”s recent successes. (“Honey I”m Good,” from Grammer”s second LP, became the 31-year-old”s highest charting single when it peaked at no. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this year.) “Good To Be Alive” opens with Grammer recalling his years trying to break out in the music biz: “I”ve been grinding so long, been trying this s-t for years.” (Grammer got his start busking on Santa Monica”s Third Street Promenade, where he sold demo CDs to pay his rent.) Then he belts out, “I think I finally found my hallelujah. / I”ve been waiting for this moment all my life. / Now all my dreams are coming true, yeah.”
For longtime Grammer fans who got to know the singer with his acoustic demo CDs and lone-man-with-a-guitar college campus tours, the new single may sound like an overproduced attempt to capitalize on the success of Bruno Mars” “Uptown Funk.” Of course, the very success Grammer sings about in the new single is in part thanks to Grammer”s willingness to put his own spin on popular but distinct sounds on the radio, like he did with his Lumineers- and Bastille-reminiscent track “Back Home.”
But the lyrics of “Good To Be Alive” are classic, feel-good, optimistic Andy Grammer, with his characteristic acknowledgment of and appreciation for life”s struggles mixed in there too. “Sometimes you gotta get scars to get what you deserve,” he sings. The lyrics “If there”s a man upstairs, he kept bringing me rain / But I”ve been sending up prayers and something”s changed” feels like a triumphant call-back to his softer, moving track written during harder times when his late mom was battling breast cancer, “The Heavy and the Slow,” in which he crooned, “Bruise me, life / Confuse me, life / Bring on the rain.”
In short, be ready to hear “Good To Be Alive” blasted from car radios in the sunny, cheery days to come.
Grammer will perform the song on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” this Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Listen to “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” here and let that bass line move ya: