Carly Pearce and Riley Green have a Top 40 single at radio with their sultry duet, “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay.” On Pearce’s latest Honest Woman album, “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay” was written by Devin Dawson, Seth Ennis, Jordan Minton, and Jordan Reynolds. As soon as Pearce heard the song, she immediately thought of Green.
“I heard this song, ‘If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay,’ and truly in my head, I’ve had a lot of duets, and it’s always come from a feeling,” Pearce says backstage at The Voice, where she is serving as a mentor for Green’s team. “And I heard Riley singing it in my head. I texted [him], and I just said, ‘Hey, I’m sure you get a lot of these requests, but I just hope that you’ll listen to this song. And, literally five minutes later…”
“Yeah, what’s funny is, she sent it to me. I did not hear myself singing it in my head,” Green continues. “I thought it was gonna be extremely tough for me to figure out, so I sent her a work tape of me playing it on my guitar. I guess it was good enough that I got the gig.”
Not only did Green do well enough to join Pearce on the song, but she was blown away by his delivery.
“You exceeded my expectations. … I couldn’t sleep one night, and my phone vibrated at like midnight,” Pearce recalls. “I looked at it, and I realized I had gotten the mix with your voice on it. And I literally did not sleep the rest of the night, because it was so good. … It was seriously so good that I freaked out.”
“Well, I’m glad, because it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done musically,” he adds. “But I love performing it with Carly.”
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The Story Behind “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay” by Carly Pearce and Riley Green
Pearce has had several hit duets, with artists like Lee Brice and Ashley McBryde, among others. Still, Pearce admits there is something unique about “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay.”
“I love collaborations, obviously,” Pearce says on SiriusXM’s The Highway. “I’ve also had a lot of success with collaborations. I’ve gotten to collaborate with so many amazing people that I set myself — I have a high bar of what I want. Obviously, Riley is Riley Green. But to me, I’ve gotten to sing with him several times over the last couple of years, and I really liked — he’s more acoustic-driven in the way that he does music. He has this simple way of emoting that I really like. It’s not over-produced. It’s very honest; it’s very real. And when we sing together, I was like, ‘Oh, you feel familiar to me in that way,’ and he felt the same.”
Of course, Green has had his share of hit duets, including both “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do” with Ella Langley. But this song, along with its steamy video, shows a new side of Green.
“I feel like the way that he sings this is like a piece of his character in his voice that I don’t think people have heard,” Pearce says. “He sounds so good on this song. I just think it’s really special.”
Photo Credit: CMA / Camden Hall