Grace Joyner – Queen City Sounds and Art

Grace Joyner’s second single from her album Settle In, “Hung The Moon,” attempts to map out the fraught emotional territory of connecting with someone you love. The layers of atmospheric dynamics parallel the varying levels of emotional intensity that come from being involved with someone who seems to be behaving in inconsistent and confusing ways. Are you being tested? Is being tested even really acceptable? Are you overwhelming your loved one and they don’t know how to tell you its too much right now? Joyner conveys this feeling of emotional suspension through contrasting music that sounds simultaneously melancholic, wistful and hopeful. The chorus “You’ve got me pulled in so many directions, baby/I started to think that’s what you wanted maybe/But now I am weak and I’ve got to change my tune/I thought you hung the moon” says much about how love is rarely if ever some simple process where you mix the right ingredients and always have the same results. And the subtext would seem to be that fundamental breakdowns in communication always leave everyone involved with an uncertainty that jeopardizes the relationship, sometimes beyond reconciliation. Since the song has the hallmarks of a sultry synth pop song with a soft but finely accented bass line and the intimate immediacy of Joyner’s vocals one comes away with a sense that this is a moment of doubt looming into the heart going a different direction than back toward the loved one that in singing out these thoughts maybe these wrinkles can be smoothed out in the end. Listen to “Hung The Moon” on Soundcloud and connect with Joyner at the links provided.