homecoming queen?

Many songs are about the girls who weren't chosen homecoming queen - the ones who weren't as popular and had to watch someone else receive a crown. But homecoming queens have feelings too, and a different set of challenges: they are expected to always be smiling and looking their best, and nobody feels sorry for them. In this song, Ballerini lets these high school royals know that it's OK to let up, come out from behind the veneer, and be their true selves. The crown can be a huge weight - it's OK to take it off.

Ballerini wrote this on February 21, 2019 with the Nashville songwriters Nicolle Galyon and Jimmy Robbins. Galyon's credits include "Automatic" by Miranda Lambert and "Saltwater Gospel" by the Eli Young Band; Robbins co-wrote Ballerini's "In Between" and Michael Ray's "Think a Little Less ."

The music video, directed by Shane Drake, uses a motion-control camera to revolve around Ballerini as she transforms from the elegant star seen on stage to her casual self, with a sweatshirt and no makeup. During the final scene we see tears running down the singer's cheeks. The crying was real. Ballerini explained to CMT that Shane Drake asked her to go back to the emotions that inspired the song's lyrics. "Immediately I went back to that place where I was feeling really insecure and really vulnerable and unsure of a lot in my life. I just checked into that girl, and wept. Hard."