Better
by Meghan Trainor (featuring Yo Gotti)

Album: Thank You (2016)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Over a tropical beat, Meghan Trainor calls out an ex. She feels that maybe she could have done better, but had been fooled by his charm. Trainor said in a track-by-track that she loves the song, "because it's a little islandy, a little Caribbean and I'm trying to bring more myself into my songs."

    Trainor added the lyrics are "true. It's a shout out to all my exes."

    Megan Trainor has a family link to Caribbean music. Hers aunt and Trinidadian uncle, Lisa and Burton Toney, are soca music performers and songwriters.
  • The song is a collaboration with Yo Gotti. The Memphis rapper tells Trainor that she is a queen who deserves better. The Massachusetts songstress said: "I'm so grateful that Yo Gotti did that for me. He didn't know me at all and I hit him up and called him and he was so polite and sweet and said 'of course I would be honoured.' I loved it and he killed it with a great verse."
  • This tropical kiss-off was one of 10 tracks that Ricky Reed (Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty," Pitbull's "Fireball") produced for Thank You. The producer told Spin that he prodded Trainor into utilizing her childhood exposure to Caribbean music. "She's always been such a brilliant songwriter and singer," he said. "She was raised around Soca and Caribbean music, so all I did was say, 'Let's expose all this. Let's actually be less conscious about stylistically drilling it down to a certain thing, and experiment.' Once we wrote 'No,' we opened the Pandora's box that we couldn't close."
  • Rather than filming a video about a broken romantic relationship, the clip shows a beleaguered Trainor struggling with her troubled alcoholic grandfather. The singer's drunken grandad is played by acclaimed actor Beau Bridges (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Bloodline), while Yo Gotti is the bartender who notifies Trainor of her intoxicated grandfather's antics.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Janet Jackson

Janet JacksonFact or Fiction

Was Janet secretly married at 18? Did she gain 60 pounds for a movie role that went to Mariah Carey? See what you know about Ms. Jackson.

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up Musicians

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up MusiciansSong Writing

Eddie (played by Johnny Depp in the video) found fame fleeting, but Chuck Berry's made-up musician fared better.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou HarrisSongwriter Interviews

She thinks of herself as a "song interpreter," but back in the '80s another country star convinced Emmylou to take a crack at songwriting.

Alice Cooper

Alice CooperFact or Fiction

How well do you know this shock-rock harbinger who's been publicly executed hundreds of times?

Dwight Twilley

Dwight TwilleySongwriter Interviews

Since his debut single "I'm On Fire" in 1975, Dwight has been providing Spinal-Tap moments and misadventure.