Ahead of her UK tour, later this month, Kelsea Ballerini has shared her astonishingly vulnerable and honest new EP – Rolling Up The Welcome Mat – a project that details the breakdown of her marriage, in a raw and real way.
The trope of divorce albums and songs has become well-known in country music and is well-trodden territory – a theme explored better in some places than others, from The Chicks’ Gaslighter to Kacey Musgraves’ star crossed and Carly Pearce’s 29: Written in Stone. The best projects (like Pearce’s 2020 project) are those that dive into the very mess of a breakdown of a relationship – exploring both sides’ ‘blame’ at its demise and displaying an almost uncomfortable honesty and vulnerability. Kelsea Ballerini’s new project Rolling Up The Welcome Mat does this from start to finish. Kelsea, herself, details of the EP “Here’s my healing journey. Here’s my heart. Here’s my truth. I’ve never been this open, I’ve never been this bold, and I’ve never been this proud of my art. So with love and respect, I’m rolling up the welcome mat.” This is Ballerini’s best work to date. No contest. It’s raw, open, vulnerable and immensely universal in the mess and pain that it explores.
In Chapter One and Two, Ballerini offers her answer to her ex-husband, Morgan Evan’s question, ‘When was it over for you?’ on ‘Mountain With a View.’ She details the growing distance between the two, physically and mentally. ‘I’m wearin’ the ring still, but I think I’m lyin’ / Sometimes you forget yours, I think we’re done tryin’ / I realize you loved me much more at twenty-three / I think that this is when it’s over for me.’ It’s a delicately, musing song that explores just why the ending became sour. There’s personal touches and notes throughout the tracks that make the songs feel both deeply personal and universal – what happened with the broken plate? ‘Just Married’ is a clever track about the loss of love – ‘Yeah, it was love / It really was / Then it was just married‘ – as Ballerini shows that she couldn’t cope with taking on the full emotional heft of the relationship. With bare touches of production, Ballerini’s vocals and lyrics are given full attention in these tracks, giving the emotion its full weight.
Ballerini shows again on ‘Penthouse’ the messiness of knowing moving on is the right thing, but the pain of leaving a relationship and the bitterness that can ensue. ‘I kissed someone new last night / But now I don’t know where you’re sleeping, baby / We got along real nice, until I wanted out, now I know you hate me / One day, the curtain started coming down / We changed the second we were moving out.’ There’s the pain of being in the wrong relationship, the pain of losing love and of moving on. Of course, there’s a degree of sass punching through on the final line ‘I just bought the house that we saw / You said it was wrong / I wanted it all along‘ that is carried through on the pop punch of ‘Interlude.’ Indeed, Chapter Five, ‘Blindsided’ is Ballerini’s most unforgiving as she questions how her ex did not know what was coming. ‘Baby, were you blindsided or were you just blind?‘ As she punctuates the mellow pop funk of the song with a recording, ‘It’s not fucking news to you, babe / You’ve been in this relationship, it’s not news to you.’
Finally, Ballerini finds peace with her ex and herself on ‘Leave Me Again,’ an acoustic track as she lovingly wishes her ex the best, ‘I hope when I see you that you smile / I hope that you find somebody new / I hope that you get the house, and the good wife, and the kids / And I hope I never leave me again.’
Above all, this new EP from Ballerini is a powerful ode to the messiness of love and loss. It’s Ballerini at her best – raw, vulnerable and honest, with open songwriting that is universal and deeply personal. This project is a triumph and will be a healer to many.
