Kelsea Ballerini takes it back to her hometown, literally, for her “Half of My Hometown” music video. The scenes are shot at her high school, in streets near her childhood home, and all over her growing up stompin’ grounds.
The story is set with a young Ballerini packing up a moving truck to leave her hometown. You can see the mixed emotions of excitement and nostalgia across her face as she makes the transition that the artist herself made as a teenager, from Knoxville to Nashville, Tennessee.
In a plot twist, after unpacking a sweatshirt from her high school, Central High School, and seeing a television ad for Knoxville, the character decides to come back home. The film unfolds a “what might have been” scenario, that could have happened had she stayed, complete with hair salon gossip sessions, marriage and babies.
As the lyrics paint pictures of what it means to leave or stay in a small town, the scenes go back and forth between watching the one who stays and adult Kelsea Ballerini singing about her hometown, while walking down those familiar Fountain City streets.
The back half of the video, with the help of home movies and clips from recent accomplishments, brings the rest of the story into focus: The way it actually happened. She did leave. She did move to Nashville. She is a big star. And now she has a song featuring a fellow Knoxvillian country superstar, Kenny Chesney.
Ballerini co-wrote “Half of My Hometown” with Jimmy Robbins, Nicolle Galyon, Shane McAnally and Ross Copperman, and sent it to Chesney the same night, to ask him to sing on the nostalgic tune.
The “Half of My Hometown” video totally delivers on exploring the tension of feeling attached to two different places as home, a place the singer finds herself.
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