After nearly seven years away from releasing a full-length studio album, Sara Bareilles is officially entering a new creative era.
The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter made a major return on Wednesday (June 3), unveiling not one but several major projects at once: a brand-new album, an upcoming nationwide tour, a documentary film, and the release of an emotional new single titled “Home.”
For fans who have been eagerly awaiting new music from the “Love Song” hitmaker, the announcement marks one of the biggest moments of her career in years.
Bareilles revealed that her seventh studio album, Good Grief, will arrive on August 28. The project serves as her first full-length release since 2019’s Amidst the Chaos and promises to be one of her most personal bodies of work to date.
According to official materials accompanying the announcement, the 14-track collection is described as “reckoning with loss, yet even its darkest moments are threaded with an insistent, luminous pull toward hope.”
The singer also shared her own thoughts on the album’s deeply personal origins.
“This whole collection of songs felt like transmissions rather than a deliberate attempt to make sense of the world. My deepest hope is that Good Grief provides some kind of comfort or catharsis.”
That balance of grief, healing, vulnerability, and hope appears to sit at the heart of the project.
Drawing heavily from her own life experiences, Good Grief explores a broad emotional landscape. The album includes tributes to loved ones, reflections on personal loss, celebrations of resilience, and songs inspired by broader social issues, including women’s rights.
While the themes may be weighty, Bareilles has emphasized that moments of joy and lightness are equally important parts of the story.
The album also reunites her with an impressive roster of collaborators.
Much of Good Grief was recorded over six days at Dreamland Recording Studios in Woodstock, New York, where Bareilles worked alongside longtime creative partners including drummer Charley Drayton, guitarist Butterfly Boucher, keyboardist Misty Boyce, bassist Solomon Dorsey, multi-instrumentalist Rob Moose, and producer-engineer Jonathan Low.
Additional sessions later took place at Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studios in New York’s Hudson Valley, with contributions from engineer Bella Blasko.
The album also features appearances from acclaimed artists and writers including Brandi Carlile, Andrea Gibson, Ingrid Michaelson, Joe Tippett, and Megan Falley.
As if a new album weren’t enough, Bareilles is also taking fans behind the scenes of its creation.
A documentary titled Sara Bareilles: Good Grief is set to make its world premiere during the Tribeca Festival. Directed by Josh Alexander and produced by Daniel J. Chalfen, the film chronicles the making of the album while offering a candid look at Bareilles’ creative process and personal journey.
According to the official description, the documentary captures her return to the studio with close friends for the first time in seven years and evolves into a broader exploration of grief, healing, connection, and artistic vulnerability.
The documentary and album are closely intertwined, with both projects exploring similar themes through different mediums.
At the center of the rollout is “Home,” the album’s lead single, which arrives with an especially moving backstory.
The song was inspired by a conversation Bareilles heard while listening to journalist Anderson Cooper’s podcast, All There Is. During the episode, Cooper and Stephen Colbert discussed the profound losses they experienced at young ages and how grief continued to shape their lives decades later.
“I was walking around. I live in Brooklyn, I was walking around listening to the podcast, and I was so moved by the story Stephen shared about losing his father and his brother,” she told Anderson on All There Is.
The conversation struck a particularly deep chord with Bareilles.
For Colbert, the discussion centered on the devastating plane crash that claimed the lives of his father and two brothers when he was just 10 years old. Cooper reflected on losing his own father at the same age, later experiencing the loss of his brother and eventually his mother.
“Your connection in that conversation, I found it to be really inspiring. I came home and started writing a song about it,” she revealed.
In typical Sara Bareilles fashion, she even approached the emotional subject matter with a touch of humor.
She joked that the song is “pretty much plagiarism” from the conversation.
Yet beneath that joke lies the larger message that defines both “Home” and Good Grief as a whole.
“For me, on this Earth, our work is to find ways to be bold enough to let other people see us. Telling stories is such an important part of that,” she added.
With a new album, a major tour, a documentary, and a deeply personal lead single, Bareilles is returning not only with new music, but with a powerful reminder of the healing potential of storytelling itself.
[Verse 1]
I am one day older than my father was, than he ever got to be
I was 10 years old when I grew up, cause he died at 53
I stared across the great divide, at my mother who was left
The dinner table stretched oceans wide, like the hollow in our chests
I never asked hard questions, I thought they’d cause more pain
I hadn’t yet learned life’s holiest lesson:
“That what is broken cannot heal
Until it’s known and loved by name”
[Chorus]
So tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine
You don’t need to worry, everything’s already alright
You’ll be the universe, nothing to hide
Anywhere you ever need to go, I can carry us home
[Verse 2]
I was taught to bury with the dead the presence of my grief
I see it now, but didn’t then, that silence is a thief
It made strangers out of friends
Rocked me saving graces offered in unlikely places
I thought I could outrun it in the end
When a shattered heart is desperate, the only respite is to let somebody in
[Chorus]
Tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine
You don’t need to worry, everything’s already alright
You’ll be the universe, nothing to hide
Anywhere you ever need to go, I can carry us home
I can carry us home, I can carry us home
[Outro]
When I speak his name, my voice gives out
Even after all these years
But I want my son to know me now
So my son will see my tears
My son will see my tears
