Piece by Piece

This is the title track of Kelly Clarkson's seventh album. The songstress sings here of a girl whose father abandoned her family when she was young. When she later falls in love, the girl learns to trust, "that a man could be kind and a father could stay." Clarkson explained she named the record after this tune as, "It's the title of the most personal song on the album and all the songs are little pieces of me."

Clarkson's parents divorced when she was five years old. She previously referenced their split on her 2005 single "Because Of You" when the songstress sung of how she is scared to fall in love, as she fears going through the same pain her parents did. Now happily married to her manager Brandon Blackstock, Clarkson sings here of overcoming her fear of being abandoned by the one she loves. Speaking during the March 3, 2015 broadcast of On Air with Ryan Seacrest, she explained. "From my experience as a child, going through a couple marriages with my mom, I never had a man stick around. Whenever people said, 'I'm in love,' it didn't really hold very much weight or gravity with me." "I didn't realize how much that affected me as much as it did until I met Brandon and I fell in love," Clarkson added. "I was like, 'Wow, this is a completely different feeling.' I didn't know what I was missing. I wrote 'Piece by Piece' about a conversation I had with my sister about that."

Clarkson wrote this song with Greg Kurstin, the Californian producer who helmed the album. It is one of only three Piece by Piece tracks she penned for the set. Clarkson explained to BBC Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw that she usually writes, "a ton on the records, I didn't this time because I was miserably pregnant." She added: "It was actually quite cool because I got a lot of inspiration from all the writers that I knew or tweeted and talked to."