Audra Watt’s new single, “Livin’ It Up,” arrived sounding like a car stereo blasting down a highway you’ve never driven before, fueled by a full tank and a spectacular disregard for the GPS. This isn’t a polite suggestion to change your life; it’s a three-minute rock-and-roll sermon on the glory of ripping up the map entirely, delivered with a voice that balances Nashville honesty with pure, unadulterated velocity.
The track has a magnificent, joyful clatter. Its blend of Pop and Country is less a clean mix and more of a spirited collision, with a piano line that feels like it’s been pounding out tunes in a Jersey shore bar for forty years. It makes me think, for a reason I can’t quite untangle, of the specific color blue of a gas flame just before it roars to life—pure, potent energy waiting to be unleashed. Watt is singing about breaking free from the sensible cocoon of a former self, and her performance feels less like a narrative and more like an active jailbreak happening in real time.
This is music that captures the specific, slightly giddy terror of spontaneity. It’s for quitting the job you hate or buying the wildly impractical boots. The message—that it’s never too late to become the person you were meant to be—is hammered home with such sincerity that it feels less like a platitude and more like an undeniable law of physics. It’s a full-throated cheer for the moment you stop planning and just start driving.
After the final chord fades, what foolish, wonderful thing are you now obligated to do?
