play w/ me

This song finds Bailey Bryan at a breaking point, frustrated by a guy who has been playing games with their relationship. "I wrote the song because a guy I was kind of seeing sent me a 'U up?' text on a Wednesday after not replying all day," she said on the Songfacts Podcast. "I am not the girl you do that to. I'm the girl you text back within an hour or you never hear from me again. I was not in the mood to let it go - the bad bitch was out. Instead of texting him back I was irritated and began playing with my guitar."

Bryan was just 22 when she wrote and released this song, but she had been making music for four years, moving from Washington State to Nashville when she was 17. She came on the scene with her first single, "Own It," when she was 18. That lighthearted song has a country-pop sound reminiscent of early Taylor Swift, but "play w/ me" takes her into electronic pop territory and finds her far more assertive in tone.

This was produced by the Monsters & Strangerz team, which has worked on hits for Katy Perry ("Daisies"), Maroon 5 ("Memories") and Miley Cyrus ("Prisoner").