Secondhand Smoke by Kelsea Ballerini

Album: The First Time (2015)

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Kelsea Ballerini penned this somber but uplifting song about her parents' divorce during a songwriting session with Josh Kerr and Jordyn Shellhart. "It's so many people's story, and a story that needs to be told because I know when I was 12 and 13 when [the divorce] was happening, I felt super alone," Ballerini told Rolling Stone. "I want to be a voice of comfort for people going through that."
It was Jordyn Shellhart who suggested the song title, though at the time she didn't know what the song should be about. "Immediately, I thought it could be a story of being in a household that's broken and that's all you know, but you decide that you're not going to feel like that," said Ballerini.

"The reality is hard but I'm going to choose differently - I want people to take that from it," she added. "And I love my parents; I have the coolest parents ever... separately. [Laughs] So it's not a knock on parents and their choices. It's saying, 'This is all I know, and I'm going to learn and grow from it and turn it around.'"

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