I think she made it as obvious as she possibly could without actually putting his name in the song.
Megan Moroney sat down for a lengthy feature with Cosmopolitan Magazine, where she discussed her ascent to stardom, her Cloud 9 Tour, life on the road, and of course, her dating life. And that means that Megan was asked about writing very personal songs, and “Who Hurt You?” came up as an example.
It’s no secret at this point that the major running theory, and probably the accurate theory, is that she wrote it about whatever went wrong with fellow country star Riley Green. The two were spotted hanging out in Nashville and in his hometown of Jacksonville, Alabama, and the song pretty much revealed how everything went down from her perspective. Megan sings about how “the devil went down to Georgia, then he crossed the Bama line,” which is very telling right from the start.
Then, she goes onto reference “hometown happy hours” and “hand-delivered flowers,” explaining that she “tried to run” while it was still a fun fling, alleging it was the man who “cosplayed someone with feelings” and convinced her to stay:
The last verse is really the most scathing, where she calls this person out for dating 21-year-olds and constantly needing his ego fed… she admits that even though she fell for it, she knows she’ll eventually move on, and he won’t. He’ll “stay the same forever”:
“You said you needed less flashy, more fun
Oh, of course she’s 21
On your arm through the bar
God, I hate how gross you are
And how did I not see it?
Your ego, it needs feeding
Endlessly, relentlessly
At the cost of me
And I’ll move on and
I’ll find better, but you’ll stay the same forever”
Riley seemingly returned the favor with a self-deprecating song called “POS Like Me,” which he shared on his own Instagram account the evening she released her album, though he’s since said publicly that it was simply a coincidence, and nothing about the song, or the timing of when he put it out, had anything to do with Megan.
Meg told Cosmo in the interview that she purposefully made “Who Hurt You?” so obvious that you could “Google it,” and she wanted it to be that way. She explained that she got tired of making it vague and having people have to continually asked who or what it might be about:
“In ‘Who Hurt You,’ I made it so obvious who it’s about that it was, like, you could Google it, and that was the point of ‘Who Hurt You.’ In the past I got frustrated with people. I was trying to hint at things, and then people would be like, ‘Who is it about?’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna lay it out there. I might as well put his first and last name in it.’ Songwriting is fun, and it’s not meant to be taken so seriously.
On ‘Break It Right Back,’ which was on my last album, my dad was like, ‘You can’t say that.’ But that’s because my dad was there and he knew that what I was saying happened exactly how I wrote it. And my dad was like, ‘You cannot put that out,’ and I said, ‘It’s too late. It’s already been recorded. But thanks for your input.'”
As if there was any question… I think we all knew that already, but there you have it.
She’s definitely not shying away from talking about her personal life in terms of her personal life being on display through her songs, and Megan explained that it stems from her “confidence” and how she feels it could possibly help somebody else listening to it one day:
“It’s confidence that has grown over time, but it’s not being ashamed of how you felt. If you think it’s wrong, then okay. But this is how I felt, so here’s the song about it. I always try to explain to people that I’ve written songs about these big emotions, so they can feel huge in a song.
But I could have felt that way really intensely for 10 minutes and wrote a whole song about it. And so in your head, you’re like, Oh, this must be her whole life. And it’s like, ‘Well, actually, I was just heated, and I wrote the song.’ Songs can be written from a few minutes of a feeling. So sometimes it’s not that deep. Other times, it is that deep.
When I get scared of putting out a song because it’s too personal, I think about how it might help somebody, because every time I’ve done it and I’ve taken the risk, people have come up to me and they’re like, ‘This song made me dump this guy’ and ‘This song is making me never want to go back to him’ It’s just one of those things where you have to be like, ‘F*** it. What’s the worst that could happen?'”
I actually find it refreshing that she isn’t shying from admitting that the songs are about what the fans think they are, because she’s right, it’s really not that deep… in fact, I think that approach is exactly what’s gotten her to where she’s at in terms of her success, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Megan’s Cloud 9 tour is a must-see, she’s really an incredible entertainer and it’s an amazing show. She has a few more American tour stops in July and August, then she’ll head overseas to wrap up the second leg.
Cloud 9 Tour Dates:
JULY
24 | Monticello, IA – Great Jones County Fair
25 | Minneapolis, MN – Target Center
26 | Lincoln, NE – Pinnacle Bank Arena
28 | Denver, CO – Ball Arena
AUGUST
1 | Portland, OR – Moda Center
2 | Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
5 | Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center
7 | Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com Arena
8 | Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com Arena – NEW
11 | Glendale, AZ – Desert Diamond Arena
14 | Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
15 | Tulsa, OK – BOK Center
16 | Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
18 | Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
21 | Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
22 | Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena – NEW
SEPTEMBER
13 | Oslo, NO – Sentrum Scene
15 | Stockholm, SE – Annexet
18 | Cologne, DE – Carlswerk Victoria
19 | Tilburg, NL – 013 Poppodium
21 | Paris, FR – Le Trianon
23 | London, UK – Eventim Apollo
26 | Manchester, UK – O2 Apollo
27 | Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy
28 | Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy – NEW
OCTOBER
1 | Belfast, UK – SSE Arena
“Who Hurt You?”
