Sober

Album: Fresh Start (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • When Bailey Bryan appeared on the Songfacts Podcast, she said "Sober" is about "how being in love with the wrong person feels like being drunk."

    In the song, she asks her partner to "think of me when you're sober," which sounds like an alcohol-assisted encounter that at least one of them will regret in the morning.

    "You could listen to it and think it's about a drunk hookup," she explained, "but to me it's about being in the moment with somebody and being like, 'I love you,' but already knowing the reason it's not going to work. You know it might wreck you a little bit. Like being trashed, you know you'll feel it in the morning."
  • Released when she was just 22, "Sober" is part of Bryan's Fresh Start project, which came of a bad breakup that made her re-evaluate. "There were so many reasons why neither of us could commit," she said. "It was a year of my life being single but also being kind of in love with someone."
  • The music video takes place in the melancholy aftermath of a New Year's Eve celebration, with empty champagne glasses and deflated balloons, a metaphor for the come-down when an exciting relationship goes bad.

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