Gracie Abrams Brings ‘Look at My Life’ to ‘The Tonight Show’

Gracie Abrams performed “Look at My Life” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, delivering an impassioned rendition of the track backed by a live band.

The song comes from Abrams’ recent album, Daughter From Hell, released in July. The LP debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, marking the singer-songwriter’s first-ever Number One album, with 124,000 equivalent album sales in its opening frame.

Aaron Dessner of the National produced Daughter From Hell, continuing a working relationship that began with Abrams’ debut album Good Riddance and continued on its follow-up, The Secret of Us. The new record’s writing credits include Justin Vernon, better known as Bon Iver, Abrams’ long-time best friend Audrey Hobert, and her partner, actor Paul Mescal, who co-wrote the song “Imaginary Friend.”

Abrams has framed the album as a study of transition. She described it to Rolling Stone as an exploration of an “in-between quality.”

“The theme to me is trying to paint an accurate picture of all of these different versions of who you are in this decade when you are sort of one foot in a past life and one foot in the future,” she told the magazine.

She elaborated on the record’s origins during an exclusive underplay show at Bowery Ballroom ahead of its release. “This album came from being kind of quiet after we had went our separate ways after tour ended,” Abrams said.

“Being in your 20s is so strange and weird, it can feel lonely in a new way and it can feel like thrilling in a new way,” she continued. “You imagine your future differently all of a sudden and then your adolescence still feels like it’s like right behind.”

The Fallon performance puts the album’s material in front of a late-night television audience weeks after the record established Abrams as a chart-topping artist for the first time. With Daughter From Hell already her third full-length collaboration with Dessner, the appearance underscores how central the live presentation of these songs has become to the album’s rollout.

Whether “Look at My Life” becomes the record’s next focal point on radio and streaming remains to be seen, but the Fallon stage has given it a high-profile showcase.