No Hard Feelings

Old Dominion lead singer Matthew Ramsey likes to latch on to everyday phrases as song ideas ("Written in the Sand" is an example). "No Hard Feelings" is something people often say, and he noted it down as a potential title. After carrying the song name around for about a year, Ramsey sat down one day with bandmates Brad Tursi, Whitt Sellers, Geoff Sprung and Trevor Rosen, plus their producer Shane McAnally, and threw the title into the ring. "I just thought, 'That seems like an interesting idea.' I didn't know where it would go, but I knew my friends would help me get there," he told Audacy. The sextet came up with a song about finding acceptance after a difficult breakup. Ramsey said it tackles the feelings after a split as they try "to move through it and just all the stages of grief."

Ramsey sings about getting to the point of truly having no hard feelings and finding platonic harmony. He is glad his ex is happy with someone else, but still wishes it could be him. "I think it's kind of the ideal," Geoff Sprung told Apple Music. "We don't always get there, but that is kind of, hopefully, the goal any time any kind of relationship ends."

Old Dominion recorded the song for their fourth album, Time, Tequila & Therapy. The five band members penned and laid down the tracks during a working retreat in Asheville, North Carolina, at the city's famed Echo Mountain Recording. The five had not seen each other often because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and felt the need to get out of Nashville and work on music. They didn't know what the results would be, but free of their obligations and responsibilities in Nashville, they could knuckle down. Over a space of three weeks, they came up with an entire album's worth of material.