Warner Music NashvilleGabby Barrett already made it to number one on the country chart with her debut single, “I Hope,” and now she’s well on her way to following suit on the adult contemporary side, thanks to a new duet version with pop star Charlie Puth.

Gabby wrote “I Hope” from the perspective of a woman who sounds like she’s about to wish her ex well with his new love — but then ends up saying she hopes the new girl cheats on him, the way he cheated on her. Turns out Charlie was a big fan of the original song, so he reached out to Gabby on Instagram.

“He had originally posted about the song, saying that he loved it,” Gabby explains. “And he messaged me later and said that he wanted to remix it and be on it. And so our teams kind of just collabed together — and now we have an awesome feature on a pretty cool song! So we’re excited about it.”

One reason Gabby’s excited is that adding a male point of view to the song makes it more relatable to both sexes.

“I definitely think with Charlie being on this track, it changes the perspective of the song,” she explains. “Because when I wrote it, I was just writing from a woman’s kind of perspective. And so with him being on it, it kind of shows a men’s perspective too, that both sides get cheated on and it’s not just a one-sided thing.”

“So he’s gonna be kind of talking to the guys,” she notes. “And I’m talking to the girls.”

Gabby’s new country single is the track, “The Good Ones,” from her debut album Goldmine.

By Stephen Hubbard and Andrea Dresdale
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