Alexandra Kay recently released her current single, “Backroad Therapy.” The liberating song, which climbed to the top spot on the iTunes country chart just hours after its release, is about moving forward from a relationship that didn’t work out instead of looking back.
“Keeping my eyes on the road and off the rearview / My mind between the lines and nowhere near you / ‘Cause driving this car right back into your arms ain’t what’s gonna fix me / I just need a little back road therapy,” Kay sings the refreshing and catchy lyrics of the tune, which also serves as the name for her headlining Backroad Therapy Tour.
Sharing the story behind the song, Kay told Music Mayhem she wrote the tune a couple of years before its release. The Illinois native also admitted that the idea for the song came during a feeling of ‘writer’s block.’ Kay and her co-writers ended up going back to the drawing board a few times to rewrite some of the lyrics before she felt she had a finished product.
“I started writing ‘Backroad Therapy’ about two years ago by myself in my driveway in Illinois, like the middle of the night, just sitting out there listening,” Kay explained. “I was kind of having some writer’s block and not feeling super creative. So, I was listening to some tracks on the Internet, some like country instrumentals, and trying to kind of spark something up. I ended up writing this chorus, the entire chorus of ‘Backroad Therapy’ in my driveway that day.”
Kay, who recently made her Grand Ole Opry debut, went on to say that she sent the “Backroad Therapy” chorus to her buddy Thomas Mac, who instantly connected with what she had come up with at that point.
“I said, ‘this is good right? Like, I feel like this is good.’ And he’s like, ‘holy sh**. Yeah. That’s really good.’ So, I held onto it for a while. Then, about a year later, a year and a half later, I ended up finishing it with Andrew Capra, my producer, who produced it as well, and Josh Gleave,” she continued. “We actually wrote it, and then we came back in and rewrote it to get it exactly how we wanted it, and I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.”
Kay calls her time recording the track in the studio a “family affair” and also shares that “Backroad Therapy” will forever hold a special place in her heart.
“It was a super special track because, well, one, it took on a life of its own and it’s been special to me for so long, like holding onto it for two years,” the singer/songwriter, who first blew up on TikTok, began. “But also, I had my live band who plays with me every single night on tour to cut the track. So they are actually the people playing the live instruments on the record. And so it was a family affair and so wonderful to be able to have them in the studio, and it’ll be a special song forever to me.”
@alexandrakaymusic If crying in your car is your thing.. this one is for you 💔🚗
“Backroad Therapy” is the follow-up to Kay’s “Skip This Part” – a song she says was Taylor Swift-inspired. And Kay says she plans to feature both tunes on her next upcoming full-length project, which will be titled Backroad Therapy.
“It will [appear on a larger project in the future], yes. So those [‘Skip This Part’ and ‘Backroad Therapy’] were the first two singles off my record that’s coming out at the beginning of the year. I am not gonna release any release dates or anything else on that,” she said. “I’m playing another song tonight that will be on that record, and it’ll be my third single off that record, but it’ll be titled Backroad Therapy, and I’m just really excited for the world to get a full project for me.
Kay also says she began writing many of the songs for the project over the past 12 months. But, she plans to continue writing songs that will be added to the album before its as-yet-to-be-announced release date.
“It’s a product of the last year, but I definitely still have a few more songs before it’s done and I just wanna make sure it’s perfect,” Kay explained. “It’s my first full-length project, and I wanna make sure that I give my fans something that they listen to and they know it’s me as soon as it starts spinning. And so I just want them to be as proud of it as I will be.”
Kay, who recently wrapped up a November run with Clay Walker and Tracy Lawrence, and has shared the stage with Tim McGraw, is currently on the road for her headlining tour The Backroad Tour.
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