To say it’s been a time of transformation for Brit Taylor would be an understatement. In the past four years alone, the accomplished singer-songwriter has crawled her way out of a depression to create an album, get engaged and find her light again in a world that had done its best to extinguish it far too many times.

It’s this transformation that fans will hear on the newly expanded edition of her 2020 album Real Me. Originally released about eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the record resembles a musical kaleidoscope of emotions that play out beautifully through songs such as “Waking Up Ain’t Easy,” “Leave Me Tomorrow” and “Love Me Back.” Real Me Deluxe, meanwhile, includes three new songs, two of which are covers of a couple of Taylor’s most cherished songs: Peter & Gordon's "I Go to Pieces" and Dwight Yoakam's "Ain't That Lonely Yet."

“As a kid, we would take family vacations to Myrtle Beach every summer because my mom was a teacher and she would be off,” remembers Taylor. “I would ride shotgun with my dad, and my brother and my mom would sleep in the backseat, and me and Daddy would just listen to music like "I Go to Pieces" for the whole way to Myrtle Beach.

"My dad just recently told me that he remembers his mom singing it when he was just a little kid," she adds. "So, it’s those kinds of songs that are really special to me.”

The third new song on Real Me Deluxe is “At Least There’s No Babies,” an emotional wreck of a song that Taylor wrote alongside fellow country artist Dee White with the intention of putting it on her next record. However, after some time to think it over, Taylor decided it wasn't going to fit there.

“The next record is going to be completely different,” says Taylor, adding that her next project won’t be nearly as heavy as Real Me. “This felt like the best way for the song to see the light of day, because I think it deserved to see the light of day; it deserves to be on a project. And now, it’s kind of like the closing of the book, the end of the chapter for this story."

It's a story the 31-year-old is now ready to put behind her, too.

“It feels like a big, heavy weight off of my shoulders,” Taylor says. “Real Me connected with a lot of people. We kind of helped each other heal: My music helped people heal, and their stories helped me heal. We knew we were not alone; we were together.

"And now," she continues, "it just feels good. It's a been a part of the healing. I don't think that I would be in such a healthy mental space if I hadn't put out that record the way I put it out.”

Taylor plans to infuse that new mental space into not only her new album, but her upcoming marriage. Her fiancé, Adam Chaffins — who sings and plays bass throughout Real Me — proposed on Valentine's Day 2021, but they're not planning any sort of flashy wedding. That's just not Taylor's kind of thing.

“I'm not much of a planner,” the artist says with a chuckle. “I kind of hate planning, and I really hate planning events, and Adam's not much on it either. So, we're going to run away. We're just gonna run away to a secret location, just the two of us ...

"We just want to have a good time and wear a cool dress and a cool suit and say ‘I do,’ and that will be it," she adds. "And it will be perfect.”

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