Kelsea Ballerini Pens Mature Love Letter To Her Mom In ‘Sorry Mom’

Kelsea Ballerini has had many honest conversations with fans over the past few years about love, heartache, divorce and the raw realities of life. Today, she portrays that same honesty through “Sorry Mom,” a love letter penned to her mom that puts the theme of growth at the forefront. 

Looking back on her life, the songstress is unpacking the different phases of her life that she knows her mom wasn’t too proud of at the time. She can now admit to having regrets about the actions of her past self and is using this song as a chance to apologize for any stress she may have caused her mom over the years. Simultaneously, the candid artist acknowledges that it took those bumps in the road “To become the woman” that her mom can be truly proud of. 

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She begins by laying it all on the table with her party years in the first set of verses, illustrating all the times she came home hungover from a night of drinking and smoking and making decisions that didn’t align with her mom’s religious beliefs. Later, she criticizes herself for losing sight of the things that matter most in life while pouring all her focus into her rise to fame. 

“I couldn’t have started a song with ‘Sorry Mom I smelled like cigarettes…,” Ballerini shared in a statement. “But that was the thing with these writers: everyone was encouraging and pushing to go further into the way we really live. And it’s all there in ‘Sorry Mom’: chasing dreams, walking away from school, losing my virginity, walking away from college.

Then the Knoxville, TN native reaches a new level of maturity in the chorus as she finds peace in knowing that the many lessons she learned along the way have led her to growing into the person she is today. At the core of the wistful song, Ballerini also finds a newfound appreciation for those in life who offer that tough love in the moments you need it most.  

She continued, “But the best part of the song is – in the fullness of time – I can appreciate how she felt about all of it, I can understand why. We can both look back on those times, knowing it was part of the journey, and it’s part of a lot of people’s journeys… But when you look at everything that happened, it turned out pretty well. To me, that’s what you can’t know ‘til you’re here.”

“I love how our relationship evolves. My Mom didn’t understand, was even disappointed by some of it, but stood by me, holds me like gravity. When you recognize your own growth, priorities and being a woman she’s proud of? That’s a lot for a song to hold,” the four-time GRAMMY nominee added. 

“Sorry Mom” is a guitar-fueled mid-tempo ballad that hits you right in the heart with its candid narrative. Kelsea Ballerini’s calming vocals encourage listeners to take a moment to realize that while life may be confusing at times, every step gets you closer and closer to achieving those dreams. 

The new track also offers a look into Ballerini’s just-announced album, PATTERNS, which takes an “all-girl approach” to generating a project full of songs that dig into even more honest stories of her life. These tracks were written during a songwriting retreat with Vanderheym, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Hillary Lindsey, GRAMMY Songwriter of the Year nominee Jessie Jo Dillon and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild. 

“There was an unpresumed feeling of knowingness that happened on that retreat,” Ballerini reports. “I felt safe, so then I was able to feel honest, and then more so, creative. We were all, as songwriters, in tandem but more so as women just in a real heart flow of it all. Having these heroes and friends champion the process and the guts of it all has been one of the joys of my career. Disassembling and sorting through the habits and nuances of ourselves, and then those that we love the most, is a chapter I am still in and will always stand by. I’m really proud of that story through music.”

Her previous release “Cowboys Cry Too” with Noah Kahan will also appear on the full-length collection which drops October 25. 

As of now, Kelsea Ballerini has no official tour dates on the books.