Conan Gray Turns Pain Into Pop Perfection in “Wishbone”
With his fourth studio album Wishbone, Conan Gray comes full circle. After venturing into more experimental territory on 2023’s Found Heaven, Gray returns to the acoustic, confessional pop sound that first put him on the map—only now with stronger vocals, sharper lyricism, and a refined storytelling instinct. This is the sound of an artist who knows exactly where he thrives, and instead of reinventing the wheel, he perfects it. Across twelve tracks, Wishbone unfolds like a diary charting the arc of a relationship—from its giddy beginnings to its bitter collapse—rendered with Gray’s trademark blend of vulnerability, cinematic detail, and melodies that lodge themselves in your head.
The album’s opening track, “Actor,” sets the tone with guitar-led instrumentation and bittersweet lyrics about a relationship hidden in plain sight. “Let’s pretend nothing happened, I agree/But you’re a much better actor than me” hits like a gut punch, reframing sweet memories through the lens of heartbreak. As with many of Gray’s best songs, the bridge explodes into high-energy catharsis—tailor-made for screaming in the car with the windows down. Lines like “You’ve spent your whole life drinking me away” plant the seeds for the record’s themes of deception, loss, and self-reckoning.
From there, Gray pivots to the aching tenderness of “This Song,” a sweet, string-laced ballad that revels in love’s early naivety. It’s yearning at its purest, with imagery like “Your eyes are like Heaven, your voice is like rain/11:11s, they all hear your name.” Placing it directly after “Actor” sharpens the contrast between love’s hopeful beginning and its eventual collapse.
“Vodka Cranberry” is one of the record’s standout vocal performances, pairing aching delivery with precise emotional storytelling. Gray watches a partner quietly slip away, knowing he’ll have to end things himself. The result is a portrait of unresolved love, steeped in the knowledge that closure will never come.
He switches gears on “Romeo”, leaning into a 2000s pop-rock flair while subverting Shakespearean romance. With venom-laced lines like “I drank your poison from your lips/I took that blade into my ribs,” Gray bluntly declares that his ex is “no Romeo.”
Midway through, tracks like “My World” and “Nauseous” explore the push-and-pull of self-empowerment and lingering attachment. “It’s my world and it’s my time,” he sings with conviction, but heartbreak still seeps in with the line, “How was I supposed to know who I should be if I was no longer yours?” On “Nauseous,” sweet, airy instrumentals mask some of the album’s most self-aware lines—“Behind every kiss is a jaw that could bite”—exposing Gray’s complicated relationship with attachment and emotional safety.
“Caramel” bursts back into an upbeat groove, though its sunny exterior can’t hide the ache underneath. Even as Gray admits the relationship was destructive—“Promises spoken, all coming back as lies”—he can’t help but romanticize the good moments, showing how memory can soften even the sharpest edges of pain. “Connell” is a quiet, fingerpicked gut punch, ending with Gray’s voice unraveling as he repeats the song’s title, haunted by a love that refuses to fade. The closing stretch—“Sunset Tower,” “Eleven Eleven,” and “Care”—softens into resignation. “I still wish for you at eleven-eleven,” he admits, and on the dreamy closer, he concedes that while he’s moving on, “it’s nice to linger in the past.”
Wishbone isn’t about reinvention—it’s about mastery. Gray’s songwriting has never been sharper, his vocals more emotionally resonant. He sticks to what he does best, and in doing so, delivers his most cohesive and affecting work yet. At this point, it’s hard to deny: Conan Gray is one of the best pop storytellers of his generation.