As a whole, Golden Hour tells the story of Wilder moving from a troubled childhood in the suburbs of Washington DC to New York in his late teens, with the dream of becoming a star – only to become intensely (but often joyously) distracted by love. He chronicles the way this relationship changed him and, after coming out of it, remembers all that it was about and the many lessons he learned along the way. He bookends the album with “Sip on a Sunset,” a song about leaving the past behind to embrace a better future, beginning dramatically with the sounds of rain, a car door slamming and an engine humming; and the title track “Golden Hour,” about finding the light at the end of a dark tunnel, emerging from a post-breakup depression and opening up again to love and romance. “Once I realized that writing and singing was what I really loved, I felt more and more like rebelling against how people saw me, against my nature,” Wilder says.
