Album: Kelsea (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Having sung about the insecurities of a homecoming queen and her dislike of clubbing, Kelsea Ballerini continues with the theme of vulnerability on "LA." She sings throughout the song about her "love-and-hate relationship" with Los Angeles.

    I watch the sun sink down over Santa Monica Boulevard
    When I'm lonely and I'm missin' home
    But other times I feel like my blood is runnin' Cali


    Though the singer is unsure if she's "cool enough" to fit in with the LA celebrities, she admits The Golden State can be magical.
  • On "Club," Ballerini talks about "stressin' over conversations." In "LA" the nerves she feels are amplified by the glitz and glamor of the City of Angels.

    I'm on my third glass of wine tryin' to find conversation
    In a room with bigger names
  • Ballerini wrote "LA" alone, sitting on a bathroom floor in Los Angeles. The Nashville star explained in an Instagram post that she'd left her guitar on her tour bus, so the song began as a stream-of-consciousness-style poem. In it she talks about "feeling equal parts like somebody and like nobody, surrounded and completely alone, inspired and terrified, on top of the world and filled to the brim with anxiety."

    "As soon as I got to the bus a few days later it became this," Ballerini added. "It's not cool to talk about not feeling cool. But it's honest. And I'm really proud of every word of it."

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