Undrunk

Album: You Ruined New York City for Me (2019)
Charted: 61
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • New Jersey singer-songwriter Cari Fletcher got her first break in the music industry in 2011, when at the age of 17 she competed on the first season of The X Factor (US) as a part of the group Lakoda Rayne. They were eliminated in the fifth week of the season.

    After attending the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, Fletcher released her debut single, "War Paint," on June 17, 2015.

    This brutally honest and vulnerable song became Fletcher's first chart hit when it entered the Hot 100 dated March 23, 2019.
  • The song was born from Fletcher struggling to get over a breakup. At the time, she didn't name the person, telling ABC News, "It is kind of just my version of closure and getting to say all of the things that I haven't ever been able to say to that person."

    She later revealed that "Undrunk" and many of her other songs from this time were about the YouTube star Shannon Beveridge, whom she started dating in 2016. They show up as a couple in Fletcher's video that year for "Wasted Youth," but after that they presented as friends, leaving fans to wonder who this person was that kept getting Fletcher all hot and bothered in her songs.

    The reveal came in 2020 when Fletcher issued an EP called The S(ex) Tapes with videos directed by Beveridge.
  • Fletcher wrote the song with Jeremy Dussolliet, Tim Sommers and Amy Allen. She explained to Genius its concept of wishing she could unlove her former lover came from one of her co-writers saying "wish we could get a little undrunk" so they could write this song, as they had been taking tequila shots during their writing session.
  • The song was produced by Malay, who previously worked on Frank Ocean's Channel Orange and Alicia Keys' Girl On Fire albums.
  • The music video was shot in part in Asbury Park, Fletcher's hometown. It was inspired by what the songstress wants the world to look like and what she wants love to look like. She explained to ABC Radio: "It's sort of this contrast between me being alone and sort of this like grey, grungy Jersey vibe contrasted with shots in the desert with warm blues and yellows, reminiscing on being with a lover."
  • "Undrunk" was developed over a really long period of time following Fletcher's breakup. She explained to Genius: "It's not necessarily about a specific moment, but it's a song about wishing you can undo loving your ex and wishing you can undo last night."

    Fletcher started writing it two years before it came out.

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