Kylie Morgan’s elevating profile on the US country scene has reached another landmark with her first-ever appearance on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. “If He Wanted To He Would,” taken from her July EP titled P.S., enters the survey at No.56.
Billboard Country Update reports that the track had a weekly radio audience of 640,000 for the artist from Newcastle, Oklahoma. It debuted on Hot Country Songs last week at No.49, and holds that position for a second week. Morgan wrote “If He Wanted To He Would,” one of seven tracks on P.S., with Zandi Holup and Ben Johnson.
The artist recently followed that EP with another, the five-song Songs To Say I Do, released on October 14. Morgan is continuing to guest with Tyler Rich on some dates of his Thinkin’ We’re In Love tour, including on Thursday (27) in Petaluma, CA. She is interweaving dates of her own with the schedule, such as one in San Jose tomorrow; her last scheduled evening with Rich is on December 3 in Fort Walton Beach, FL.
Speaking to Billboard in July about the honesty in the lyrics of her new chart song, Morgan said: “I needed to hear this at 16, and I feel like a lot of girls and women do, but no one else knows how to say it to them. And so I’m like, ‘I just did all the work for you, and hopefully this will jog your brain.’”
Added Johnson: “The lyric is kind of like a girl who’s overthinking and spinning around in her head. You’re like, ‘Hey, stop going in circles. You’re overthinking this. Don’t try to make a guy better than he is or make a situation something that it’s not.’”
Co-writer Holup mused of the male character in the song, and the lyrics he inspired: “We were talking about being misunderstood. I said something about, ‘Oh, yeah, he ain’t misunderstood.’ And I think we just started to say the word misunderstood and get twisted up. And then we’re like, ‘Oh, Mr. Misunderstood’ [in reference to the Eric Church hit]. We were like, yeah, ‘He ain’t Mr. Misunderstood.’”
Buy or stream Kylie Morgan’s P.S. and Songs To Say I Do EPs.