ABC Kelsea Ballerini‘s latest top-ten hit, “hole in the bottle,” is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since it came to life as a happy accident during a night of drinking. 

At the time, Kelsea believed she’d finished crafting songs for her third album, kelsea.

“We were in Florida writing,” Kelsea recalls, “and we went out to dinner to celebrate having a wonderful, productive trip, writing so many songs. [We] had a bunch of wine at dinner, and got back to the house. And [songwriter] Jesse Frasure was playing us some more tracks that he was excited about. And it was Ashley Gorley, Steph Jones, myself, Hillary Lindsey and Jesse.”

“We have a glass of wine,” Kelsea continues, “and we have the doors open, and the beach air is coming in, and we’re just high on life. And he’s playing this track. And Hillary just goes, ‘There’s a hole in the bottle,’ like joking.”

Pretty quickly, they realized they might be onto something.

“We all just start adding lines, just completely joking, having wine, enjoying life, joking about writing the song,” Kelsea continues. “And then at the end of it, we kind of looked at each other and we’re like, ‘Wait, is this really hooky?'”

“And the next morning, we all woke up and again had our coffee, and we’re listening to it,” she remembers. “We’re just like, ‘Wait, even though this is like kind of funny, it’s kind of really, really hooky. Maybe we should rewrite a couple of bits and tighten it up.’ And we did.”

“And it’s one of my favorites on the album. I can’t wait to do this on tour,” says Kelsea.

You can also check out a new version of “hole in the bottle” that adds vocals from Kelsea’s hero, Shania Twain.

By Stephen Hubbard
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