Graveyard

Album: Unapologetically (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Kelsea Ballerini starts off her Unapologetically album with this meditation about feeling buried under the emotional decay of a dying relationship.

    "I was going through a breakup that was really hard on my heart, and finding success at the same time," she explained. "It was a big tug of war between my heart and head, and career and personal. It was messy. I didn't show it at the time, but now I get to."
  • Unapologetically is a chronological sonic diary of Ballerini's life since the release of The First Time. It details the heartbreak of a breakup, her self- rediscovery, before finding love with fellow country singer Morgan Evans.

    "I don't even know how to describe it in a few words," the singer told The Boot. "It's a chronological story, because I love albums. I think that's how you get to know artists, by listening to the whole thing, not just singles. And so, I was thinking, 'How do I make people want to listen to the whole thing?' I was like, 'Well, I've written about my life, why don't I just put it in order and just lay it all out there, with how it happened.'"

    "And so, it's a story, and it starts really dark, and it gets really light. It was really freeing to write it as honestly and as openly as I could, and then put it together," Ballerini added. "I listen to it and I get emotional because I'm like, 'I remember that.' And people who have followed me the last three years, since I put out the first record, they're going to hear a song and they're going to hear details in it, and they're going to know what it was about, and that's really cool."

    When Ballerini and Evans got divorced in 2022, it triggered another outpouring of songs that can be found on her 2023 album Rolling Up The Welcome Mat.

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