Yahoo News HunterGirl Held onto New Single 'Ain't About You' for Years Before She Let Anyone Take a Listen (Exclusive)
The 'American Idol' favorite will now see that same song launch her career at radio next month
HunterGirl wasn’t having one of her best days.
"You know when you are just overthinking your entire life in a span of five minutes?” recalls HunterGirl, 25, during an interview with PEOPLE. “That was me."
Granted, on this particular day a few years back, the sweet songstress from Tennessee had already been chasing a country music career in Music City for a long while with little to no success. And as the girl with the ever-present smile began to question the path her life seemed to be on, HunterGirl says she decided to write just one more song.
"I started to think about, ‘What if this isn't about me?’” remembers HunterGirl, who began writing songs when she was 9 years old and moved to Nashville when she was 18.
“If I give up, I'm letting everybody down. I'm not just letting myself down. I'm letting all these people that have believed in me since I was a kid. I'm letting my mom and dad down. It was just that moment where I said to myself, if I give up on this, there's so many other people that will be losing too. And just that perspective kind of hit me.”
David McClister
HunterGirlHunterGirl went and wrote the chorus of her new single “Ain’t About You” in a matter of minutes.
“I called it my 45-minute conversation with Jesus,” HunterGirl says of the emotional writing session. “I was just pouring everything out of my head. Everything was totally unfiltered, and I was not thinking. I was really just trying to get it all out.”
Related: HunterGirl Reveals Her 'True Love' in 'Lonely Outta You' Music Video — Watch! (Exclusive)
A week later, HunterGirl auditioned for American Idol, and everything changed. In 2022, she came in second place on Season 20 of the long-running singing competition show, and has since gone on to release songs such as “Redbird,” “Hometown Out of Me” and “Lonely Outta You” while also getting to share the stage with artists such as Luke Bryan, Josh Turner and Luke Combs.
But while her career took off, HunterGirl kept “Ain’t About You” mostly to herself. That is, until earlier this year.
“I didn't show this song to anybody with the label until six months ago,” explains HunterGirl of the enlightening song that she serves as the sole writer on. “I didn't show it to anybody. I was like, ‘Nobody's going to hear this song.’ I didn't even upload it or put it anywhere in the box that you're supposed to put your songs in.”
But when her label head overheard her playing the song during a writer’s round in the office, the path that “Ain’t About You” began to develop.
“I just hope that anybody that listens to this song gets filled with hope and thinks about life a little bit differently,” she tells PEOPLE. “I know we all get caught in our heads so many times during the day and night. Just taking a second to think, ‘What if what we're doing is not supposed to be about us, but it's supposed to be about everybody else?'"
“Ain’t About You” is now scheduled to go to radio on Oct. 23, marking HunterGirl’s official debut radio single.
“Putting a song out right now is super important to me because I want people to know me and know my story,” concludes HunterGirl. “Everybody wants to make it where they want to make it so fast. I'm just really blessed that the timing [for this song] was the way it was because it was perfect for everything that has happened so far.”
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