Single Review: ‘Better’ – Maggie Rose
11 years ago Liv Carter 1
Songwriters: Candy Cameron, Dave Berg, Deanna Bryant
Maggie Rose’s new single ‘Better’ is a bit more on the serious side than 2012’s cheeky ‘I Ain’t Your Mama.’ Written from the perspective of a woman who has just been through a bad breakup and is tempted by the urge to drink the pain away, it’s a familiar trope in country music. And that being the case, it’s an easy thing to mess up.
Thankfully Rose & company knock it out of the park. The song does a great job of mining the emotional aspects of the situation beyond, “I’m drunk, I’m sad, I’m lonely” and because of this, ‘Better’ ends up being a song that puts us in different than usual territory. The rationalization of, “Well, it’s just tonight, I’m not going to do this every night,” the slippery slope involved with that thinking, and the self-hatred involved with giving in to the temptation. But it’s the plainspoken chorus that puts things into perspective: ‘I just want to feel good, feel all right, feel anything but what I feel tonight…and put the pieces back together. I just want to feel better.’ It’s so simple yet so powerful at the same time.
Rose’s girl-next-door delivery almost makes a dark topic even darker because it forces you to consider the possibility that this is something that even the most seemingly innocent may be prone to. And that’s a big part of why this song works. Rose’s delivery really makes the subject matter pop in a way that I don’t think it would if a less subtle singer were to cut this, and it’s part of what made ‘I Ain’t Your Mama’ such a fun song. She’s definitely showing her versatility on these singles. The vocal harmonies also really capture the feeling of the track. They don’t try to go overboard with production or vocal histrionics, it’s just a great singer singing a great song.
In all, I really hope the country world takes notice of what Maggie Rose and her team are doing, and that the rest of the record is as good as ‘Better.’
Liv Carter
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
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