4x GRAMMY nominee Kelsea Ballerini has released her new single ‘First Rodeo’, the latest song to be taken from her forthcoming album PATTERNS out October 25th via Black River Entertainment.
Kelsea’s new album emerged from the wreckage of her marriage as she found her way forward into a whole new day. Weighing life’s moments of loss, love and laughter has defined the singer. Always personal, always unabashed, she’s measured the reality of growing up in a world that changes quickly.
Stream Kelsea Ballerini – ‘First Rodeo’ HERE
Navigating loss, finding new love, creating a different kind of relationship and always leaning on her friends, Kelsea wanted to be honest about the cause and costs of how life evolves. She also wanted to work with her close coterie of creatives, notably producer Alysa Vanderheym, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Hillary Lindsey, GRAMMY Songwriter of the Year nominee Jessie Jo Dillon and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild.
Following her single ‘Cowboys Cry Too’ featuring Noah Kahan, which is closing in on 90 million streams, and the confessional ‘Sorry Mom’, with all the tells of how we fail our parents, ‘First Rodeo’ offers a young woman willing to seek, but speaking to the tentativity that being hurt can create. With a vibey track, a bit of cello and a slightly breathy vocal, Ballerini owns her own experiences and hopes for something worthy of her heart.
“Listen, there’s a reality that an inner monologue post public breakup is, ‘I feel washed up on the heart front. I feel like I don’t know how to do this anymore,'” she says. “But at the end of the day, choosing love is bigger, and the honesty of saying please take it slow and be patient with me can actually be a beautiful and connective moment. ‘First Rodeo’ encapsulates that conversation, and more so, that decision within self to be vulnerable and open and allowing the hope of it all to seep back in.”
To reinforce the tentativity of re-engaging, Ballerini again teamed with Patrick Tracy for a visually rapturous video filmed on the beach, on a vintage carousel, in a luxe hotel room, on a boat and in the arms of a new lover. With an emphasis on golden hour and sunset lighting, there’s a dreaminess to the clip that matches the record’s own wistfulness.
Watch the music video below:
With another track from PATTERNS available, as well as a sold-out Madison Square Garden concert to celebrate its release, the multiple Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music award winner has much to celebrate in the coming year. Focusing on an album that embraces female friendship, vulnerability, honesty, jagged spaces and the way relationships really are, not the way they look on Instagram, she’s released her most personal and powerful work yet – and she is getting ready to take it all on the road.
“The visuals are meant to show the emotion, duality, feelings, and landscape of this record. But as much as it’s personal and my own art and life, it’s kind of at the point now that it turns into a shared relationship…where it becomes a different meaning to everyone. Truly, that’s why I can’t wait to play this record live and see how it all connects outside of my own journey. Until then, I feel like ‘First Rodeo’ is the perfect final taste of the storyline and heart of PATTERNS.”
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