Alexandra Kay is having a pretty unforgettable 2026, including having a hit single at radio with “Straight For the Heart,” a song from her sophomore Second Wind album
“This year has been incredible,” she reveals backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. “I had my first song go to country radio. I’ve had a lot firsts: my mom calling me and saying, ‘You’re on the radio right now.'”
Kay is also part of the Opry NextStage class, along with Emily Ann Roberts, Tyler Braden, Carter Faith, Vincent Mason, Hudson Westbrook, Jake Worthington, Graham Barham, and Willow Avalon. Not only does it allow Kay to play multiple times on her favorite stage, but she also gets to see others perform at the Opry, one of her biggest highlights. But 2026 still holds more for Kay, including serving as the opening act on a major tour.
“I am going on tour with Jon Pardi, and that will go through November,” Kay boasts. “I’m just really honored that he asked me to do it. I know we’re going to have a lot of fun.”
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Alexandra Kay Debuts a New Song at the Grand Ole Opry
During one of Kay’s recent performances, she debuted a new song, “One Woman Show.” It’s a song that she says is “very, very personal” to her, born from an incredibly hard season Kay went through in 2025.
“At the end of last year, we were wrapping up the Second Wind Tour. I felt so drained, because I was going on stage every single night, and I was reliving this divorce,” Kay recalls, referring to the songs on her freshman All I’ve Ever Known record. “I did what I always do: I went back to my therapist and talked my way through it. And she was like, ‘You need to write a song about this.’ That’s how I’ve been dealing with things since I was like 12.
“And I just spilled my heart into this song,” she continues. “I didn’t know if anybody would ever hear it. I started playing it acoustic a couple of times on radio shows. And then I was like, this song’s gotta come out. And what better place to do it than the Grand Ole Opry.”
Alexandra Kay’s Plans for More Music
Second Wind came out in October, but Kay is already looking ahead to her third studio album.
“I’m going to be cutting a new record, continuing my writing, recording,” Kay teases. “We already have a European tour that’s almost half sold out. Any chance I can get, I’m like, let me go be with the fans. That’s where I want to be.”
Kay recently teased another new song, “To Know Him,” also from her next set of tunes. The Illinois native shared a clip of the song on social media.
“One of the hardest parts about a relationship ending is eventually they’re going to move on, and eventually, there’s going to be somebody out there that knows them better than you,” Kay says before playing the song.
She captioned the video by saying, “I think it’s about time I start sharing some new songs with y’all. This one’s called ‘To Know Him.’”
The heartbreaking song says in part, “To know him is to love him / And to love him is to lose him / And to lose him, I’m losing so much of myself / It’s a different kind of hell knowing someday someone else / Gets to know him like I knew him.”