You Broke Up With Me

Album: Boom (2017)
Charted: 62
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Songfacts®:

  • Alabama native Walker Hayes moved to Nashville in 2005, hoping to get in the country music business. He landed a job writing songs for a Nashville publishing company before signing a contract with Mercury Records Nashville, He achieved two Top 50 country hits with the label, "Pants" and "Why Wait for Summer." However, Hayes got dropped by Capitol, and had to get himself a job working the night shift at Costco to support his family. After spending a number of months stacking shelves, the producer Shane McAnally recognized Hayes' talent and signed him on a publishing and production deal.
  • Co-written by Hayes with Kylie Sackley and Thomas Archer and produced by McAnally, this song tells the story of a guy out partying when his ex-girlfriend walks in. When she starts making moves on him, he rebuffs her by saying "you broke up with me."

    "Honestly," he told People the track "is really about Nashville. I've been in Nashville 13 years, and I've had deals and lost them. So I know what it's like to be hot and how everybody wants to collaborate with you."
  • Hayes' fairweather friends disappeared when he was spending his nights stocking shelves at Costco, but then turned up again following his turnaround in fortune. This song is a shrug to those people who didn't stick by his side during the hard times. Hayes explained:

    "A lot of people kind of showed up out of the woodwork after four or five years. Then they tried to make me feel guilty when I didn't want to have coffee or something with them, and I'm like man, you guys broke up with me."
  • If you listen closely at the beginning of the song, you can hear Kylie Sackley and Thomas Archer discussing the lyric in the background. The audio was taped during their original write in Walker's studio.

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