Comeback Kid

The Band Perry's first new song to be released in a year, this slow ballad was released on August 1, 2016 through the sibling trio's new label Mercury Nashville. The single features Kimberly Perry singing about refusing to give up after a rough time. The lyrics are an account of the hurt the threesome felt at all the negativity over their radio silence. Kimberly Perry explained to Nash Country Daily: "For those who know the business of music, we, very literally, moved one label home to the next. One of the reasons for radio silence was—how any move goes—at one house you've got to box up everything and then you've got to drive it down the street, unpack everything and get everything settled. That's sort of what the last handful of months were for us. And it seemed like in that moment of transition there were a lot of voices out there who decided to tell their version of what was going on and our version of the story. In that moment there was a lot of misinformation. I think The Band Perry became the favorite click bait of every blog. On one hand, that was disappointing. On the other hand, that was challenging because we talked about it and were like 'Do we respond to this, do we defend ourselves, do we share with everybody what's going on?' Ultimately, we were raised to let actions speak louder than words. Let's just make a song that proves what our intentions are. 'Comeback Kid' is that moment. It's the most honest lyric that we've ever written about everything we were thinking and feeling. But bigger than us, it really is a story of anybody that's walked through a challenging moment and come out on the other side stronger and wiser for having gone through it."

The single was written by the sibling trio over an afternoon and a half. Kimberly Perry explained the story of the song: "We were playing some of the new music for a couple of our friends and we were talking about what should the next moment be. It's this funny thing where we have all this fun music on the upcoming album but it felt disingenuous to not address this moment that just happened in our lives. Our friends looked at us and said 'You need to write three minutes of your truth. Just be completely transparent. Let us see you and know you on a deeper level than we ever have before.' We took that advice out of the studio and were on our tour bus in the middle of band rehearsals. The phrase comeback kid is—I related to it ever since I was in the eighth grade playing basketball and I was never good at offense but I was good a defense. I felt that sentiment of being an underdog for as long as I can remember. We just sort of sat on the bus and talked about how we wanted to relate these things we were thinking and feeling. It happened very easily. Very, very quickly."

The song tells the band's story since the release of "Live Forever" in August 2015, documenting turmoil, disappointment, struggles and finally joy. "'Comeback Kid' is probably the most intensely personal lyric that we've ever written," said Kimberly Perry. "We love language we love visuals and poetry hence all of the imagination that went into writing 'If I Die Young' but it was really important to us on 'Comeback Kid' that we told the real life narrative of everything that we've been thinking and feeling over the past year. I mean it's no secret to anybody that we've gone through an amazing transformation of one that ended in such a bright and beautiful place but it had its moment along the way of real and true struggle."