It seems to be a great time for collaborations by female country artists… hot on the heels of the recent track from Erin Enderlin and Terri Clark which we told you about last week ( https://www.bellesandgals.com/2021/09/08/erin-enderlin-collaborates-with-terri-clark-on-upcoming-release-if-there-werent-so-many-damn-songs/ ) it’s now the turn of Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde to combine forces on the absolutely stunning song “Never Wanted To be That Girl“. Taken from Carly’s album “29: Written In Stone” released this coming Friday, 17th September via Big Machine Records, it’s a track which became a firm favourite with me having been privileged to have heard the album pre-release, and one I made a particular point of asking Carly about in out recent interview (which you’ll get to read very soon!).
Written by Carly and Ashley alongside Shane McAnally (the album’s co-producer) the song reignites the Country music tradition of the hard truth telling, cheating song, with the clarity bomb sung from the perspective of two women… the single girl (Ashley) who the guy hooks up with and who leads her to believe he is available, and his trusting wife (Carly) sitting at home waiting for him to return. Both finally realise the man they are involved with has someone else, and neither of them ever wanted to be in that position… who in their right mind would, after all?
“Nobody ever thinks it will happen to them,” Pearce explains. “You never see it coming, but there’s always an explanation. You know, who’d ever want to think that way about someone they love. Why would you? And so, that’s where this song started: the things you don’t see, because you’d never look.“
“Ashley is such a great drop-into-the-moment writer, she was able to bring that reality bomb truth to what we were doing,” continues Pearce. “She’s fearless, and she understands human nature in a way that let us both really write to the hurt of realizing we’ve been lied to by someone we’re intimate with.“
“Carly isn’t afraid to face the less potable subjects,” McBryde offers. “As a writer she’s willing to get in there and get very honest. Writing this song together with Shane strengthened our friendship and taught us more about one another and ourselves. Seriously, nobody wants to be the other woman. And when you find you are … damn. It’s such a gut punch.“
The high-drama, real woman duet is available to listen to now: https://CarlyPearce.lnk.to/NWTBTGPR.
Review written by Lesley Hastings (twitter.com/lesleyhastings)
