"Brunette" is a wry breakup anthem with a wink and a checklist. Rather than chasing a carbon copy of a former flame, specifically, a certain blonde ex, Tucker Wetmore enumerates the exacting specifications for his next love: a brown-eyed, 5'5" woman from the north side of the Mason-Dixon line, who has never been fishing or mud racing and has no memory of the songs he once shared with his ex. And most importantly, she has to be a brunette.
It's a strategy of avoidance, a deliberate march away from the past, like Chris Stapleton's "
Starting Over" meets a country dating app.
Chris LaCorte, Chase McGill, Josh Miller, and Blake Pendergrass wrote the song, with LaCorte also producing. It appears on Wetmore's debut album,
What Not To, released in April 2025. That foursome also penned Morgan Wallen's single "20 Cigarettes."
"When we sit down to write, man, it's big swings only,"
McGill told Billboard. "We're never setting out to write a normal song."
Though Wetmore didn't pen the lyrics himself, the song feels autobiographical. He dated blonde Nashville model Bryana Ferringer for just under a year, though there's no confirmed timeline linking the relationship to the song's writing or early 2025 previews. Ferringer is the likely inspiration for "
Proving Me Right," which finds Wetmore in the observer's seat rather than the selector's.
The music video leans into cinematic whimsy. Directed by Wetmore and Chase Foster at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wetmore plays a sheriff hunting for an outlaw brunette, only to discover she's orchestrated her own capture, a playful metaphor for the push-and-pull of desire and control that runs through the song.
YouTube and TikTok star Hannah Godwin is the titular brunette at the center of the chase, and there's a cameo from The Bachelor alum Joey Graziadei as a bartender.
Songwriter-producer Chris LaCorte hosted the session that created the track at his Nashville office on January 23, 2024. Miller arrived with the title "Brunette" and the core concept. The storyline flips expectations by suggesting that a dark-haired woman could be the solution for a guy who has had bad luck dating blondes. As the idea took shape, McGill picked up one of LaCorte's guitars, a 1961 Gibson LG-2, and developed a fast, rolling riff that drives the track. The guitar pattern acts as the song's backbone, creating bursts of energy with each chord change.
Although the writers were clear about the narrative, the song's rapid pace makes much of the lyrical detail easy to miss on first listen. Because the most clearly audible lyrics appear at the beginning and end of the chorus, casual listeners might interpret the song as a celebration of brunettes. In reality, the lyrics reflect the singer's fixation on Southern blondes and his struggle to break that pattern. LaCorte described the track to Billboard as "unintentionally deceptive" because of this contrast.
The second verse expands on the internal conflict. At the end of the second chorus, the writers extended the section by introducing the idea that the next potential partner cannot be blonde if he hopes for a successful relationship, adding the line, "You ruined that for me when you left."
After a third chorus, the song ends abruptly just before the two-minute mark. They didn't even consider making it longer.
"At the time, there were so many pop radio hits that were like a minute and 55 seconds, two minutes and 15 seconds," LaCorte said. "A lot of them don't even come around to a third chorus. I think some of it was a trend, but I kind of love the psychological play on that, where it leaves you wanting more and you want to play it again."
LaCorte initially produced a stripped-down demo built around the vocal and the guitar riff, with minimal bass and a steady four-on-the-floor kick drum. The loose arrangement left room for multiple stylistic directions, including the possibility of a bluegrass or folk-pop approach similar to The Lumineers. Although LaCorte later became Gavin Wetmore's producer, he did not personally pitch "Brunette." Instead, one of the song's publishers submitted it to Back Blocks CEO and founder Rakiyah Marshall, who included it among roughly a dozen songs for Wetmore to review.
Wetmore first heard the track while boarding a flight from a small Oklahoma airport. Listening through headphones, he connected with the song and imagined it with a Western-inspired feel. "It's kind of like a sharpshooter in the middle of a dusty street kind of vibe," he said. "That's what that lick gives me."
The musicians are:
Nathan Keeterle: electric guitar
Sol Philcox-Littlefield: electric guitar
Tim Galloway: acoustic guitar
Tony Lucido: bass
Nir Z: drums, percussion
Alex Wright: piano, Hammond organ
The recording session took place at Sound Stage in Nashville. LaCorte wasn't sure how the musicians would interpret the arrangement, but Wetmore's Western concept resonated during tracking. The players leaned into the song's high-speed tempo, delivering an energetic performance. "It kind of feels like a panic attack," LaCorte said. "It's almost anxiety-driving, in a good way."
