John ShearerIt’s a good bet Carly Pearce is “Happy Now,” as her duet with Lee Brice becomes the second number one of her career this week.
“I Hope You’re Happy Now” happens to be Lee’s seventh chart topper, but it accomplishes a goal he’s had for some time.
“I’ve always wanted to do a collaboration with a girl — never been able to do it,” he reveals. “Then this song came in and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m in love with the song, in love with her — the singer, in love with the story.'”
Carly wrote “I Hope You’re Happy Now” with Luke Combs, inspired by the last relationship she had before marrying husband Michael Ray.
The Kentucky native confesses she had to summon her courage to play the track for Lee.
“I’m such a fan of his songwriting,” Carly reveals. “Take the voice, I mean, that’s no question. But I was nervous to play a song for somebody that I respect so much as a songwriter.”
But Carly need not have worried.
“I do love to write my own songs,” Lee explains. “But… a lot of my singles, probably half of them or more have been outside songs. But they were great.”
“I can write good songs all day long,” he continues. “Every now and again, I can get on a great one. And I put them together and make records. And there’s always one or two special, special things that I find that I couldn’t have wanted to even write any different at all.”
“‘I Drive Your Truck’ and ‘Hard to Love,’ ‘Drinking Class,’ ‘Woman Like You,’ I didn’t write, but they were just like, ‘Well, you can’t ask for anything better than that,'” he reflects. “This song was exactly one of those songs.”
By Stephen Hubbard
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