While he has published music in the past, Diving Lessons is Addison Grace’s first full-length studio album, and it tells the story of him healing his mental health.
The opening track, “Fish,” introduces a metaphor. Grace compares having stable mental health to swimming, and he talks about missing “the lesson where we learned we are fish.”
Introducing the idea of taking lessons to navigate his own mental health issues, “Fish” begins Grace’s story of resilience in face of mental health issues.
The track “Bath” gives some details of a toxic relationship Grace had in the past. The ballad contains the anger of a person who knows they didn’t deserve to be treated the way they were. The song takes a moment in the album to sit with the hurt that Grace is moving through.
Then “Slime!” switches the subject of the album to healing and learning self-love. It starts off like a slow ballad but quickly builds into a more typical indie rock song with a few more creative elements.
The song features an electric kazoo in the background and has Grace screaming lyrics that compare mental illness and motivation problems to “feeling like slime.” All the while Grace shows a transformation into a more healed person, moving away from those feelings.
This blends cleanly into the next track, “White Lie,” which is about the trials and tribulations of dating and how oftentimes people tell “White Lies” about themselves to seem more desirable. The song is a declaration of the things wrong with a relationship Grace had and a justification for the end of a superficial relationship.
“I Miss You(r dog)” is the last track and it brings Grace’s story of moving on to a natural conclusion.
The song focuses on the few nice things in the relationship that are gone. There is no desire to rekindle the relationship; instead, Grace focuses on wishing his ex’s dog well. The song balances missing the good parts of a relationship while accepting that the end of a relationship can be a good thing.
