Cassadee Pope Waited Patiently for More Than Three Years to Release ‘I’ve Been Good’ (Exclusive)

When Cassadee Pope first heard her current single, “I’ve Been Good,” more than three years ago, she was signed to Big Machine Records. Pope heard the retrospective song while at a songwriter’s night, but because she was with a big label, didn’t have complete creative freedom to record any song she wanted.

But when the alum of The Voice decided to leave Big Machine and release music on her own, she knew she wanted to share “I’ve Been Good” with the world.

“No one else saw in it what I saw,” Pope told PopCulture.com. “Eventually when I became independent and I was with my producer, Corey Crowder, thinking about recording a record, I remembered that song. It had meant something completely different to me at that point ’cause I had gone through a break-up.

“I had felt all those things the song talks about and all of a sudden I was really grateful that I hadn’t cut it, because I wouldn’t have been able to sing it with as much feeling or as much understanding,” she added. “Then I went into the studio and cut it with Corey and it’s a fan favorite. It’s kind of cool.”

Pope knows she may not get as much airplay with “I’ve Been Good” because she is independent, but she is still proud to give the song she has loved for so long some attention.

“I’m independent, so it’s really just me being like ‘Hey guys, if you wanna play it, great. If not, all good,’” Pope said. “But it was performing so well. It was streaming, it got added to a bunch of playlists and I thought that I wanted to give it a spotlight. I wanna give it a moment. I don’t need it to be officially or unofficially my single, but I want it to be song that has a platform and has a moment of it’s own. That’s why I did the acoustic video for it and that’s why I’ve sort of been promoting it as my single.”

“I’ve Been Good” is one of 11 songs on her recent Stages album, which marked her first full-length album since Frame by Frame was released in 2013, one year after winning The Voice.

“I wanted it to be a story,” Pope reflected. “I wanted it to be the perfect explanation of what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been going through the past few years. Fans are still buying it, they’re still streaming it they’re still discovering it, which, as an independent artist and as somebody who’s still up and coming, I feel that’s gonna happen and that’s real exciting, ’cause I’m playing so many shows and I’m going to these places. I was just in Albuquerque playing this hot air balloon festival.

“People were discovering me that day and it makes me excited because I love this album,” she continued. “I know that I’m writing for a new one and I’m continuing to work on some new stuff but that will always be out there. That will always exist and it excites to think 10 years from now someone could just be discovering Stages.”

Purchase Stages at her official website.

Photo Credit: Getty / C Flanigan