Carly Pearce looks back on a failed relationship and finds fault on both sides in her new song “Should’ve Known Better.” The country singer dropped the track on Friday (Feb. 5), one day after announcing her forthcoming new album 29.
Written by Pearce with Jordan Reynolds and Emily Shackleton, “Should’ve Known Better” at first sounds as though Pearce beating herself up for a failed relationship: “You found me at the right time / I loved you from that first night / Bet everything on what we had / Should’ve known better than that,” she confesses.
Then, though, Pearce pulls her lens back, letting listeners know this breakup is most definitely not all her fault. “You sold me on the fantasy / Damn it, it all felt real to me” she sings, and though she’s heartbroken, she’s not “sleeping in the bed you made no more.”
“I gave you my heart, you let it go to waste / You made me do the leaving and you made me take the blame / Does it make you feel good to make me feel bad?” Pearce sings in the chorus. “Yeah, you should’ve known better, should’ve known better than to break what you couldn’t fix / Boy, what a shame what you’re gonna miss / Why’d you go and do what you can’t take back? / Yeah, you should’ve known better, should’ve known better than that.”
Pearce’s 29 is due out on Feb. 19, just over one year after she dropped her self-titled sophomore album on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) 2020. It chronicles the period during which she dealt with the death of her producer, Busbee — an acclaimed producer who worked with Pearce on her first two albums, and even prior to her record deal with Big Machine — and the end of her relationship with fellow country artist Michael Ray after a very public courtship, engagement and wedding, but less than one year of marriage.
“It was very clear that this was not the marriage that I wanted,” Pearce shared in an interview in late 2020, insisting that her love for Ray was real, and that she did everything she knew how to do to keep things together.
“It takes two people to work on something,” she continues. “When you love somebody, you trust them.”
In addition to “Should’ve Known Better,” fans have already heard three other tracks from 29: Pearce’s current single “Next Girl” and a song she wrote for Busbee (“Show Me Around”), as well as a snippet of the track “Messy.” Pearce co-wrote four of 29‘s seven songs with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, both of whom also produced the project.
“The best songs come from the moment, from real creative spark — and Josh and Shane bring it out of me. They both know where my musical heart is, and they understand how to capture exact details for much larger truths,” Pearce shares, adding. “I feel lighter reflecting on the last year and pouring my soul into this music and wanted to share it in hopes that others to will take from the songs what they need.”
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