You Could've Loved Me

Album: El Rio (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This Dustin Christensen and Chris Gelbuda penned tune was recorded by Frankie Ballard as the closing track for his El Rio album. He told CMT News it was one of his personal flaws that drew him to the song. "Everybody who's like me, who's a dreamer and has something that they have to do in their life, or has something that they have to go and see, at some point in that person's journey, they end up leaving," he said. "Sometimes they leave a lot. I'm a leaver. I'm always chasing the next thing that I've got to do. When you leave, sometimes you leave somebody behind. And the real difficulty in that is it's not always because it wasn't working, it's just because you left. That's heartbreaking."

    "It was heartbreaking for me because I've done it," Ballard continued. "To think about, 'Well, if I would have just stayed, it might have worked.' It's a strange feeling to have because it's hard on them. It's hard on you. It's an emotion that I know a lot of people have experienced. I've experienced it firsthand. It's a little bit revealing in some ways. But I think being honest about some of those emotions that I've experienced in my journey, I think welcomes people in who've been there, too. I hope people hear it and go, 'I'm not the only person who's ever felt like that.'"
  • Illinois singer-songwriter and producer Chris Gelbuda is best known for producing Meghan Trainor's John Legend-featuring hit single, "Like I'm Gonna Lose You."

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