Kelsea Ballerini Was ‘Determined’ To Make It In Music City

Author Lauren Hoffman

June 25th 12:54 PM

Kelsea Ballerini is not only one of my favorite humans on the planet but she is also one of the most hard working artists I know. The country star is hosting Backstage Country this week and she’s taking us on a trip down memory lane.

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Ballerini made the move to Nashville after high school and never looked back. She agreed to a deal with her mom that should would attend college until she found a job in music that would “sustain” herself, and she did just that.

“I was just determined. So I did classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Tuesday. Thursday were like my music days. And I was writing with whoever would write with me. And finally, just kind of found my group and signed a publishing deal first,” Ballerini said.

She continued, “I was signed as a songwriter first and dropped out of college. Sorry, mom! I took that whole first year to just figure it out. You know, to really have the time and space to to write one, two, three sessions a day and just figure out, as a 19-year-old, what do I want to say? How do I want to say it and how do I want it to sound? And within that year, we wrote ‘Love Me Like You Mean It,’ ‘Yeah Boy,’ ‘Peter Pan,’ and most of my first record.”

The 30-year-old released her debut studio album, The First Time, in 2015. Ballerini’s projects over the years include Unapologetically (2017), featuring “Miss Me More and “Legends,” Kelsea (2020), featuring “Hole In A Bottle” and “Half Of My Hometown,” Subject To Change (2022) featuring “Doin’ My Best” and “If You Go Down,” and her latest masterpiece, Rolling Up The Welcome Mat (2023), featuring “Blindsided” and “Penthouse.”

Ballerini is preparing to drop new music to the world very soon. She admits, she “panicked” when it came time to make her forthcoming record, however, wanted to keep the same “level of of vulnerability and intention,” but also bring it into this new chapter of her life.

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Top Five Fun Kelsea Ballerini Songs

"Yeah Boy" (2016)
A fun song found on her debut album, “The First Time.” The music video for the song is an ode to the 1990s. Ballerini is shown performing the song in a colorful bodysuit in front of a neon backdrop and a brick wall spray-painted with graffiti, with female backup dancers. When the song came out, Kelsea was touring with Rascal Flatts and headlining her own “The FirstTime Tour.”
"Heartfirst" (2022)
This is a song on Ballerini’s “Subject To Change” album, which seemed to catapult her to a new level of fame. Kelsea wrote the song with Alysa Vanderheym and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild in July 2021. According to Ballerini, it was the first song that she ever wrote where she did not come up with the title first; instead, the opening line, “Met him at a party / Accidentally brushed his body / On the way to get a drink at the bar” was the first lyric she wrote for the song.
"Dibs" (2015)
The fun song she named her dog after. The official music video for “Dibs” premiered on October 22, 2015. The video consists of footage Ballerini took while on tour in York, Pennsylvania, Greenville, South Carolina, and St. Leonard, Maryland, performing in front of live crowds, celebrating her 22nd birthday, and spending time with her dog. The chorus sings, Yeah, I’m callin’ dibs / On your lips / On your kiss / On your time / Boy, I’m callin’ dibs / On your hand / On your heart / All mine.”
"Hole in the Bottle" (2020)
Kelsea happily joins the country music ranks with a drinking song; a remix of the song featuring Shania Twain was released five months after the original single came out. The music video begins with a vintage black-and-white style with Ballerini dressed in flapper wardrobe reminiscent of the 1920s. Once the first chorus hits, colored scenes are introduced, and she is shown in a house painting a portrait of her dog Dibs in a field with a couple of friends who join her in lounging on a bed and performing a dance routine with the singer and playing chess with herself.
"If You Go Down (I'm Goin' Down Too)" (2022)
This song is a gem and puts Kelsea in the same company of “fun” murder songs like the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl.” Ballerini said when the song came out, it was actually to evoke thoughts of the 1991 film “Thelma & Louise” and The Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl.” She told us then, “We really wanted to lean into a very ’90s country feel, and so we brought in fiddle for the song, which I think to me makes it. That’s also why there’s a Chicks reference to it, which everyone picks up on, which was absolutely intentional. I didn’t want to make it sound like anything else on the record. I wanted it to be its own moment.”