Valentine’s Day is here. And while some people may be enamored with chocolate-covered strawberries, rose petals, and Cupid’s Arrow – others are … not. And they wrote songs about it.
Videos by American Songwriter
Joan Jett built a career on a song about hating love with “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” But country music has its fair share of love-hating songs, too. Dierks Bentley released a new song today – “She Hates Me.” True to Bentley, it’s a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek tune about loving a woman who hates him. Think “Drunk on a Plane” 2.0. Kelsea Ballerini and Miranda Lambert each have songs called “I Hate Love Songs.” Warren Zeiders recorded “Loving and Hating You,” and Granger Smith released “Hate You Like I Love You.”
Here are a few of our favorite almost anti-love songs for Valentine’s Day:
Dierks Bentley
Dierks Bentley, “She Hates Me”: Out today just in time for Valentine’s Day, “She Hates Me” was penned at a writing camp last Spring by Bentley and longtime collaborators Ashley Gorley, Ross Copperman, and Chase McGill. The spirited up-tempo does what many of Bentley’s biggest hits do best – put a humorous spin on the singer’s heartbreak. “Drunk On A Plane” anyone?
Bentley’s longtime collaborators Ross Copperman, Jon Randall, and Mary Hilliard Harrington produced the grungy love-gone-wrong track.
Lyrics include: I thought one day we’d be on some acres raising babies/She should be falling only problem is she hates me
Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert, “I Hate Love Songs”: Lambert wrote the melancholy “I Hate Love Songs” with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall. “I Hate Love Songs” is from her recent Postcards From Texas album. Unlike “She Hates Me,” there’s nothing funny about “I Hate Love Songs.”
Lyrics include: Have you ever needed someone| Like you might come undone? | Like you might just die| If they said goodbye| I did one time| And it ruined my life| Everything went wrong| Now that he’s gone| I hate love songs
But Lambert doesn’t hate love. She recently posted a photo and sweet message to her husband, Brendan McLoughlin, on their sixth anniversary.
“I’ll love you forever,” she wrote.
Kelsea Ballerini
Kelsea Ballerini, “I Hate Love Songs”: Ballerini’s version of the title isn’t quite as serious as Lambert’s. She light-heartedly sings about the ridiculousness of all the in-love cliches but circles back to say she loves “you” anyway.
Ballerini wrote the song with Shane McAnally and Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen.
“I was like, ‘Guys, I think I need another love song, but I hate love songs,” Ballerini told The Tennessean. “We all kind of looked at each other, and it was that magical moment that you fish for in every co-write, and we just wrote it. It was so fun to make those rhymes bounce like (Dr. Seuss-like) kind of rhymes. It really did write itself.”
Lyrics include: I hate Shakespeare and Gosling and cakes with white frosting| Two names in a heart-shaped tattoo| I think Cupid is stupid and violets are purple not blue
Then she wraps it up with: I hate love songs| But I love you
Warren Zeiders
Warren Zeiders, “Loving and Hating You”: Written by Zeiders and Justin Ebach, “Loving and Hating You” is from his 717 Tapes. Zeiders’ masculine, gritty voice rips through lyrics including: I’m right on the line of lovin’ goodbye| And textin’ you after two| Yeah, I’m stuck in the middle of lovin’ and hatin’ you
Granger Smith
Granger Smith, “Hate You Like I Love You”: In “Hate You Like I Love You,” Smith says he wants to hate the woman as much as he loves her so he can forget about her and move on with his life. Smith’s wife, Amber, stars in the music video.
Lyrics include: I‘m just tryin’ to hate you like I love you| Not want you like I need you| Forget you like I miss you
(Photo via AFF-USA/Shutterstock)
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