Kelsea Ballerini made a grand return to Knoxville, Tenn., on Thursday night (Nov. 2) for a show at the University of Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena. Shortly after launching into her hometown-proud song “Half of My Hometown”, she abruptly stopped the song.

“Uh, can we stop?” she says to the band in video seen below. “I can’t be in Knoxville and sing this song without Kenny Chesney.”

The crowd goes wild — she doubles over in laughter as Chesney makes his way onto the stage. The two Knoxville natives share a big embrace as the audience continues to cheer.

“Hi everybody, good to see you,” the country veteran shouts as Ballerini paces the stage with excitement.

“Kelsea, backstage, she goes, ‘Don’t make me cry up here,'” Chesney tells the audience. “I’m not gonna make her cry, but I do want to say just how proud I am of Kelsea and her band. Tonight is very special and I’m thrilled to be back in east Tennessee to celebrate Kelsea Ballerini.”

Chesney compliments her jacket before the pair launch into their duet.

“Half of My Hometown” was first released on April 19, 2021 as an ode to the place where Ballerini grew up. Chesney — who’s also from Knoxville — is a featured artist on a song that speaks to all the things Ballerini loves about the town that raised her. However, her love is coupled with a desire to leave and pursue her dreams.

Despite ultimately saying goodbye to Knoxville, it has always remained a big part of her life.

The “If You Go Down” singer announced her hometown show in September, noting that after singing about her hometown for years, it was time to actually go home.

“Throughout the last decade and four albums, there has been a consistent ode to my hometown,” Ballerini wrote on social media at the time. “Whether it be lyrically like in ‘Half of My Hometown’ or celebrating milestone moments in venues like my high school, the Tennessee theater, or the civic center, it’s always been incredibly important to me to go back to the place that let me go to chase my dream.”

Kelsea Balerini opened up her divorce diary in February 2023 with her Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP, a project that follows the stages of a breakup — from grief and loneliness to anger to acceptance — in chronological order. Here are eight of the most revealing lyrics from the project.

Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak

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1. “Mountain With a View”

The Lyric: “I’m wearin’ the ring still / But I think I’m lyin’ / Sometimes you forget yours / I think we’re done tryin’ / I realized you loved me much more at 23 / I think this is when it’s over for me.”

The Backstory: Not long after news broke that they were getting divorced, Evans released a song called “Over for You,” in which he describes feeling blindsided by Ballerini’s choice to end the relationship and wonders when she came to that decision. In “Mountain With a View,” Ballerini breaks down exactly how she came to realize that the relationship was over — and spells out an answer to Evans’ question.

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2. “Mountain With a View”

The Lyric: “You’ll say I’m crazy for being the one to leave / Scream, I’m just like my parents and givin’ up easy / But you never took that last flight to see me“

The Backstory: Ballerini has said that she first discovered songwriting as a kid in order to grapple with the painful experience of watching her parents get divorced. Now, in this line, a childhood trauma that was formative for her comes full circle with her own marital split. Throughout the songs on Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, Ballerini also describes a recurring problem of too little time together in a relationship — and hints that it was her ex that was the one who ultimately stopped making time to be together.

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3. “Just Married”

The Lyric: “Yeah, it was love / It really was / Then it was just married.”

The Backstory: In this song, Ballerini paints a wistful picture of her wedding day, and the nostalgia she still feels for those happier times. While Rolling Up the Welcome Mat includes plenty of moments of anger and resentment, this song is more about sadness — and remembering the fact that despite its painful end, this relationship began from a place of true love.

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4. “Penthouse”

The Lyric: “I bought the house with a fence / Enough room for some kids / A backyard for Dibs.”

The Backstory: Ballerini’s fanbase knows that “Dibs” in this lyric refers to her dog, whom she adopted in 2015 and named after her hit song, “Dibs.” The mention of a house in this lyric also has a personal connection: Following their divorce, Ballerini and Evans sold the home they shared together, and Ballerini purchased a new Nashville home — which had formerly been owned by Kacey Musgraves. At the end of “Penthouse,” Ballerini mentions her new dream home, singing, “I just bought the house that we saw / You said it was wrong / I wanted it all along.”

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5. “Interlude”

The Lyric: “The rumors goin’ ’round but the truth is kinda nuanced / I wanna set it straight, but my lawyer says I shouldn’t / And ain’t it like this town to only criticize a woman?“

The Backstory: It’s no secret that Ballerini’s divorce from Evans was highly publicized — and after the news broke, it seemed like everybody had an opinion, and a whole lot of those opinions were negative toward Ballerini. In this song, she leans into her anger over those public perceptions — and specifically, the sexism involved in people’s assumptions — and shares her frustrations at not being able to share her side of the story as plainly as she’d like.

Terry Wyatt, Getty Images

6. “Blindsided”

The Lyric: “Like that one time in 2019 before that big show, we had a big fight / I slept on the couch, and the next night you put on your suit / I put on a smile and sang about how it’s okay to cry / Dying inside.”

The Backstory: It’s hard to say for sure which “big show” Ballerini is singing about here, but it’s a good bet that it could have been the 2019 CMA Awards, which Ballerini and Evans attended together. That night, Ballerini sang an intimate, up-close performance of “Homecoming Queen?,” a ballad off of her 2020 album, Kelsea.

Dimitrios Kambouris, Getty Images

7. “Blindsided”

The Lyric: “And now you’re saying that you’re lost / And that’s lost on me / You didn’t ever wanna leave the house / I didn’t want a family.”

The Backstory: Here’s another instance of Ballerini’s apparent response to Evans’ musical assertion that he felt caught off guard by their breakup. From Ballerini’s perspective, the end of the relationship was inevitable well in advance. In this song, she describes a relationship with a couple of big problems: The two people in it have different ideas about travel and socializing, and they can’t agree on plans for having kids.

Jason Kempin, Getty Images

8. “Leave Me Again”

The Lyric: “I hope you’re spending Christmas with your family / I hope you’re writing songs that you love / I hope you’re feeling happier than you’ve ever been / And I hope I never leave me again.”

The Backstory: Ballerini’s six-song EP takes many sonic cues from Taylor Swift-inspired, cinematic pop, but she concludes the project by returning to her roots, using only her acoustic guitar and plaintive, unadorned vocals. The musical return-to-form goes along with the final stage of a breakup: Acceptance, and a desire to move on with life while also wishing the other person well. “Leave Me Again” is a peace offering to an ex, but even more importantly, it’s a love song to herself.