Songfacts®:

• Born in Michigan and raised in Colorado, Ingrid Andress earned a vocal scholarship to Boston's Berklee College of Music. While there, she garnered attention as an a cappella singer on NBC's The Sing-Off. After leaving the show, Andress completed her degree majoring in songwriting and a performance. She then moved to Nashville, Tennessee where she began writing songs for artists such as Charli XCX ("Boys") and Halestorm ("Conflicted"). This song is Andress' debut single, following her signing with Warner Nashville in 2018.
• This vulnerable ballad finds Ingrid Andress inviting her boyfriend to meet her family and school friends in her hometown. They all love the guy every bit as much as she does, so she warns him they will be more emotionally devastated than her if the relationship doesn't work out.
  
  Oh, if we break up, I'll be fine
  But you'll be breaking more hearts than mine
  
  Andress explained to Genius: "That line is just supposed to hit hard and let them know how much emotionally is on the line for people in my family. And it's more of me just stating the fact that I will probably get over this quicker than they will, but they obviously mean the world to me, so you better not mess up."
• The idea for the tenderhearted song came from Andress being unsure if she was ready to introduce the guy she was seeing to her large and close clan. She explained that her family "really latch on" to her boyfriends and it hurts them when they break up.
  
  Andress wrote the concept into her phone and bought it into the studio with her songwriter buddies Sam Ellis and Derrick Southerland. They started with the idea that "it would technically break six other people's hearts and not just mine." Then they all chipped away and built the song from there.
• Andress told ABC Audio there are plenty of people out there who relate to the song's storyline. "It's been crazy hearing everybody's stories that they have about it," she said. "That's been the most fun interaction, is people coming up to me and being like, 'Oh, that's just like my dad.' Or like grandparents who come to my shows [and are] like, 'Oh, this was our story.'"