Kelsea Ballerini Returns to Her Roots on ‘Love Is a Cowboy’

Kelsea Ballerini is taking fans on a romantic countryside voyage in her brand new song, “Love Is a Cowboy.”

Co-written by Ballerini alongside Jesse Frasure and Parker Welling, the sentimental ballad personifies love and likens it to a cowboy’s attractive and aching traits.

“Rough around the edges, stops you in your tracks / Wrecks you in the worst way when it looks like that / Knocks you off the horse but it keeps you comin’ back / Love is a cowboy,” Ballerini sings in the tender ode, torn between the joy of a relationship and the dread of an inevitable heartbreak that ensues.

“Makes your heart feel like wild horses in your chest / Trying to catch, it’s like tryna tame a wild, wild west / And when I’m with him, it’s like ropin’ the wind / Love is a cowboy,” she continues in the heartfelt chorus over a steady, train-track-like melody.

Production-wise, the tune treks in a country direction, with the weaving in of traditional instruments like steel guitar and fiddle that augment the overall organic sound.

The accompanying video, though simple, stays true to its conjured picturesque imagery and narrative essence. Against a tinted orange sunset, Ballerini performs the song in a long beige fringe jacket as the sky gradually dims into nightfall.

“Love Is a Cowboy” is the latest preview of Ballerini’s newly-announced and highly anticipated fifth studio album, Subject to Change. Fans got a first taste of the 15-song collection with its summery lead single, “Heartfirst,” which is currently climbing up the country charts.

“In my younger years, the idea of change scared me. It had proven to be a faceless force that patterned my past with uncertainty,” she shares in a promotional video on Instagram. “Only in the gift of growth have I learned that in the stark and constant juxtaposition of life, living happens. That when I unclench my fists, un-dig my heels and unravel the architecture built by youth, a true metamorphosis can happen.”

“This is a season of becoming, healing, loving, dancing and feeling,” Ballerini continues. “And like everything, it is subject to change.” Additionally, in a TikTok Q&A video this week, the country-pop superstar revealed that the upcoming LP “is heavily influenced” by “’90s female country.”

Subject to Change is the follow-up to the Tenn. native’s 2020 album, Kelsea, which spawned the hit singles “Half of My Hometown” with Kenny Chesney, “Hole in the Bottle,” and “Homecoming Queen.”