Carly Pearce has struck gold with her “We Don’t Fight Anymore” collaboration with Chris Stapleton. The song, the debut single from her still-untitled fourth studio album, is already in the Top 25, and climbing — not that Pearce is surprised. Both singers, by now revered vocalists, also happen to be from Kentucky, just part of what Pearce says makes the song work so well.
“Kentucky knows Kentucky,” Pearce told People. “I don’t know how to explain it, but when we sing, it just fits.”
Already friends, Pearce sent Stapleton’s wife, Morgane, a message to see if the reigning CMA Male Vocalist of the Year would sing on the heartbreak track with her. Stapleton fortunately consented, although the two never had a chance to sing the song live together, until the CMA Awards. Due to their conflicting schedules, Pearce and Stapleton recorded their parts for the song separately, with Stapleton taking the song to a place even Pearce never imagined.
“He called me on his way to the studio and asked me what was my wildest dream for the song,” Pearce recalled. “And I said, ‘Go do what you feel.’ Obviously, I’ve had other collaborations, but it’s kind of like they sing a verse, I sing a verse, we sing a chorus. But he took the bridge of this song, and just made it his own and gave it a whole different meaning to the song and a different voice to the song — and it blew my mind.”
In Pearce’s original version of “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” she joined Stapleton on the bridge, although that quickly changed once she heard Stapleton’s take.
“I literally said, ‘Turn me off,” Pearce remembered. “This is his bridge. It’s almost now a conversation, where we call and answer each other. He sings something that was just better than anything I could have ever told him to sing.”
Pearce has already had two big collaborations, both with “I Hope You’re Happy Now” with Lee Brice, and “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” with Ashley McBryde, the latter earning the two singers a Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Collaboration, a category Pearce and Stapleton are also nominated in this year, for “We Don’t Fight Anymore.”
By her own admission, Pearce says she may never be able to top singing with Stapleton, especially on a song she wrote.
“I don’t know where I go from here,” Pearce conceded. “This felt like the biggest.”
Pearce wrote her masterful 29: Written in Stone album amid her divorce from Michael Ray, while the world was also shut down because of COVID-19. While life is much different now than it was then, Pearce says her new set of tunes will still be honest and very authentically her, even if it is a bit different from her previous project.
“Life’s not chaotic like that anymore, and we’re not in a global pandemic where you are at home being able to write all the time,” Pearce acknowledged. “But honestly, I’m really proud of the new music, and I feel like what 29 did for me is give me the confidence to be as country as I want to be, so I’m just really pushing into that.”
Pearce will wrap up her Country Music Made Me Do It Tour on November 18. She will serve as the opening act next year on Tim McGraw‘s 2024 Standing Room Only Tour, which kicks off on March 14 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Find all of Pearce’s music and upcoming shows at CarlyPearce.com.