YREG Diary: traitor

I wrote most of 'traitor' on my bedroom floor in Atlanta. I sort of forgot about it until I sent a bunch of voice memos to myself and I loved it so much then, I finished it up and I really like the way it turned out. What hits different is, "you talk some dirt, when we're not together." I feel like when it also starts a timeline when the teenage romance starts to trickle, it's the initials act of betrayal.

In the song, I sing about how I was bathed in a world of white lies all throughout my relationship. All his sweet whispers literally turned out to be sweet nothings. And I assumed that there were worse acts of sins committed behind my back. Him saying I just liked to be in his shadows. All throughout the album, it's all about how fast that person moved on from me once we'd broke up.

Then hinting that he already was cheating on me while they were dating. So moving on for him was quite easy.

Traitor is one of my favorite songs I've ever written, I think. I really liked the line, “I guess you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor.” Because I think it's really a concise way of expressing that super painful feeling of betrayal that you get when someone you know so well moves on so quickly. I think that's the hardest part about being a songwriter sometimes, is diving into those really painful emotions. I think you can never lie to yourself when you're writing a song. At least, it's hard for me.