After teasing new music with a T-shirt, Carly Pearce has released her new single “Next Girl,” a return to the singer’s country roots. Written by Pearce, Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally, the song is a letter from the narrator to her ex’s “next girl,” with Pearce seemingly letting her know that the smooth-talking guy in question has used the same lines plenty of times before.
“I bet you probably met him at a bar / Let him walk you to your car,” she sings in the chorus. “I bet he said he never falls this hard / Yeah, I remember that part / He knows how to say all the right things / Knows how to get you out of that dress / Knows how to make you think you’re the best thing / But I know what happens next, girl.” The warning is backed by a rollicking banjo and slick country production, bringing to life Pearce’s previously expressed wish of returning to more of a classic country sound.
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“I think that even if someone hasn’t if a girl has not experienced this yet, God bless them that they haven’t, they’re going to,” Pearce told Kelleigh Bannen on The Kelleigh Bannen Show on Apple Music Country of the song’s topic. “And I feel like the song is almost like preparation and also like an anthem of just like this has nothing… We as women think it has to do with us. It has nothing to do with us and everything to do with them.”
Pearce released her sophomore self-titled album in February but shared during a media round in June that her next release would be new music. “Unexpectedly I started writing and doing because I just put out an album in February,” she told PopCulture.com and other outlets. “So I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I still have all this music that I need to go out there and do and perform and live.’ I oddly found myself extremely creative during this time. And I think a lot of people would be shocked that my next single will be completely new music, not off of that album, with completely new people.”
The Kentucky native’s most recent single was her duet with Lee Brice, “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” which was nominated for three CMA Awards this week including Song of the Year, Music Video of the Year and Musical Event of the Year. Pearce was also nominated for New Artist of the Year.
