(SOUNDBITE OF GRACE VANDERWAAL SONG, "PROUD")
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Grace VanderWaal's new album is a haunting reminiscence of her past.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PROUD")
GRACE VANDERWAAL: (Singing) Humble child, promise I'll be small. I won't take up space at all. Remember, gratitude. You tell me I'm great when I don't cry, and I never ask for nothing. Ground yourself. Remember your place. You don't have a voice yet. You don't get to say, apologize. Better self-correct. I promise it's the best if you never ask for nothing.
SIMON: Grace VanderWaal was 12 years old when she won "America's Got Talent" in 2016. Her victory put her into the spotlight, and she's grown up there. Her new album called "Childstar" looks back on that time in her life as she tries to make sense of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PROUD")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) Did I make you proud? Did I take your breath away? Did I make you proud?
It's really confusing as a child - specifically gratitude and being humble - because I felt so much guilt and burden because I felt like these amazing things had happened, but at the same time, terrible things were happening in my personal life. Terrible. I felt like my duty to be grateful was to not feel any of maybe the bad things going wrong. It was a really strange feeling.
SIMON: May I ask what the terrible things were?
VANDERWAAL: I can't. I - it involves people beyond me, and it's not my - I can't tell their story for them.
SIMON: So this is something you felt even before you were before the eyes of America.
VANDERWAAL: Yeah. I think it's something that a lot of people experience, and even women, as adults, you know, to stay pleasant and smile and fight your natural instincts.
SIMON: Natural instincts like what?
VANDERWAAL: You know, as people, like, you primally want to tell people around you, I need help. I need to survive. And so it's very unnatural to swallow that down and smile and say, I'm really happy to be here.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOMESICK")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) I'm homesick for a day that never happened, and I'm going to a place that I imagined. I'll awaken in my bed...
SIMON: Let me ask you about your song "Homesick." That song is so beautiful and sad, and I don't know which word to put first.
VANDERWAAL: Yes, beautiful and sad. I wrote "Homesick" about awaiting healing or serenity or salvation. Maybe during that time, you would think, the best time in my life is if I achieve this or if I find love. And then you end up living your life, and you're like, I wasn't present ever 'cause I was awaiting this something that I don't even know if it exists.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOMESICK")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) While I'll waste every moment on the chase. Oh, it's never over. For the day that can't get any better. If it's not mine, it's gone forever. But then why do I remember? All...
SIMON: May I tell you, I think you have the most extraordinary voice.
VANDERWAAL: Thank you.
SIMON: I mean, did you just wake up one day and start singing or...
VANDERWAAL: I mean, I guess so, yeah, kind of. I've always loved singing. I've always loved writing and singing. It was just always an outlet for me. I've always been very bad at expressing myself, and so I was drawn to that.
SIMON: What did making this album help you realize about yourself?
VANDERWAAL: You know, it really made me realize I - I've carried this with me for, you know, quite some time - this - these feelings and this story, and my strongest battle was what to do with it. I felt like it just was this rock in me that I just carried absolutely everywhere in bad times, happy times, and it just - it was always there. You know, I wrote this album and it really made me realize the root of that wound was the secrecy of it. The fact that I never spoke about it or I never told anyone, writing it out gave me freedom. It really made me get this feeling of, like, oh, my gosh, that was such a huge part of it, and I didn't even know.
(SOUNDBITE OF "BRAND NEW")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) I'm the woman. I'm the sin. A blemish burned into your skin. I'm not the mother of your loss. I'm not the sister of your lust. Desperate, I pray. Run the bath. In the water, I'll bathe. I'll do anything that you say if I could be brand new. An apple...
SIMON: You are still 21. I mean, you've seen a lot of life, but you've got a long ways to go on. Do you let yourself have hopes?
VANDERWAAL: Yeah. I have a lot of hopes. Hopes to do justice by this music and performances and tour and everything is kind of like doing justice by my little girl self.
SIMON: Doing justice by your little girl self. You trying to help that person or...
VANDERWAAL: A lot of people with interrupted childhoods, you, you know, kind of had to take on a more adult role. I think that you can feel this unfinished business. A lot of people can carry that child trapped in purgatory with them. And to be able to do this music and make it right, that has been a send-off for me. That little girl deserves her story to be told right.
(SOUNDBITE OF "BRAND NEW")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) Tied to the stake. Rotting skin, I stare at my grave just hoping to be brand new.
SIMON: Grace VanderWaal's new album, "Childstar." Thanks so much for being with us.
VANDERWAAL: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF "CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT")
VANDERWAAL: (Singing) In the bar on Broadway, there's a flicker... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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