Carly Pearce Delivers Another Dose of Heartbreak in Unreleased ‘Heart First’ [Listen]
Just weeks after dropping her single "Next Girl," Carly Pearce is getting ready to serve up another dose of heartache. The singer recently shared an unreleased demo of another new song, "Heart First," on social media -- and it's also ode to heartbreak.
While "Next Girl" is an upbeat heart-to-heart from a woman to her ex's latest conquest, "Heart First" is a ballad that leans into the devastation, sadness and helplessness of a breakup. Its lyrics take a rearview look at heartbreak, and realize that the pain was unavoidable.
"'Cause when you fall, you fall heart first / And when you hit the ground, it hurts / Wish there was another way without the crash and burn / That I could learn / But when you fall, you fall heart first," Pearce sings in the song's chorus.
Pearce recorded the demo at home, she says, accompanied by a simple piano line. "This is a demo that I sang in one take, in a closet (#quarantine)," she writes in the caption of her post:
"I wrote it for anyone who's ever realized that their head and heart don't always line up ...," she adds, along with an emoji of a broken heart.
Pearce, who topped the country radio chart earlier in 2020 with her duet with Lee Brice, "I Hope You're Happy Now," has some recent experience with heartache: In July, she filed for divorce from fellow country star Michael Ray just eight months after the couple married.
Neither Pearce nor Ray has commented on the split in great depth, though Pearce recently stated that the reasons behind their breakup are "just something that has to stay between the two of us," stressing that artists' lives are never as perfect as fans may assume they are on the surface. Furthermore, she pointed out that the experience has taught her that she is stronger than she realized.
Pearce has been working hard on new music during quarantine, and reflected recently that her latest material is teaching her to find beauty in life's imperfections, both in music and in her personal life. The singer hasn't yet shared when fans can expect a studio version of "Heart First," however, nor has she unveiled any official news about her next album. Pearce put out her self-titled sophomore record in February.
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