Girl Crush

There's a darkness coiled inside this song that catches you off guard the first time you really listen. On the surface it might register as a lament from a woman fixated on another woman — but the emotion being excavated here is far more complicated and far more honest: the irrational, almost devouring envy of watching someone else hold the thing you want most. The production is spare and aching, built around acoustic guitar and restrained harmony arrangements that give the five-piece's vocals room to breathe and cut. Little Big Town are master arrangers of human voices, and here the blend between Kimberly Schlapman's warmth and Karen Fairchild's edge creates a tension that mirrors the song's psychological complexity. The verses are specific and stinging — the jealousy isn't abstract, it attaches itself to physical details, to hair and lips and hands. The bridge opens like a wound. This was a commercially divisive song when it was released, which only underscores how precisely it hits a nerve — it refuses to make jealousy sympathetic or noble, just renders it with complete emotional accuracy. There's a hushed, late-night quality to the recording, as though the admission being made is one you'd only speak aloud in the dark. You'd listen to this after a moment of clarity about something you've lost, or during the specific misery of watching someone else live your almost-life.