‘Good Thing’ From Leon Bridges Is Our Album Of The Week

Leon Bridges Reveals His True Voice

It must be great to be called your generation’s Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye. And on his debut album, 2015’s Coming Home, Bridges deserves the comparison. For the Fort Worth, Texas singer, being called your generation’s Leon Bridges may feel even greater. 

In a recent profile on All Things Considered, Bridges acknowledged as much. “I’m very thankful for what Coming Home did, but I didn’t want to be placed in this box and depended upon as like, this Sam Cooke prodigy,’ he said. “I wanted to be able to take elements from Coming Home, but move the sound forward.”

Coming Home caught a lot of people’s attention, and what has Bridges done with being under the spotlight? Delivering among the most honest lyrics of his career.

Don’t Wanna Hurt No More

On the album, Bridges, 29, opens up about relationships with his family and former girlfriends. In his first singe, “Bet Ain’t Worth The Hand”, Bridges can’t commit, or make plans. “Don’t wanna wonder what we could’ve had,” he sings, before closing out the song on a loop of him singing, “I been hurt before, don’t wanna hurt no more.”

He told NPR that the song came from having to keep the relationship hidden, out of fear of disappointing his devout mother.

On a different spectrum is the funky “Bad Bad News”, which features a neo-Soul rhythm section, holler-backs from his band and a proud, smooth-as-silk Bridges, a sense of redemption in his voice. “They tell me I was born to lose / But I made a good good thing out of bad bad news,” Bridges sings. 

Listen to new songs from Good Thing all week long on The Colorado Sound, with a new one every evening at 7 pm. Leon Bridges will be performing at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 9, with Khruangbin and Masego. Tickets for that show are still available.