John Morgan’s ‘Cry Baby’ Turns Personal Hurt Into a Potential Hit: ‘Just a Part of Life’
Categoria: Musica
This week's Makin' Tracks highlights the writing and recording behind John Morgan's "Cry Baby."
Por Billboard | 13/11/2026
Apologies suck. They’re necessary in any adult relationship, but saying the right words, at the right time, is tricky, and muffing it up can actually dig the hole deeper. More importantly, if an apology is due, it means somebody did — or said — something hurtful. Having made a mistake that requires an “I’m sorry” is what sucks the most about trying to make amends. “If you care about a person in a relationship, there’s going to be times where you’re pissed off at each other, and you’re gonna say something that just comes right out,” says John Morgan . “People get stressed, you know, and they say things that you wouldn’t normally say. That’s just part of life, being able to grow through those moments.” Apologizing for a stray remark is one thing. Taking ownership for a series of mistakes is next level, and songwriter Tully Kennedy (“If I Didn’t Love You,” “Tip It on Back”), around the time of his 20th wedding anniversary, took stock of the relationship he’d built with his wife. “I’m thinking about all the times I wasn’t the best boyfriend back in the day, or the best husband,” he says. “I looked at her, and I said, ‘You know, sorry I made you cry, baby.’” He had a writing appointment that day — April 11, 2025 — at BMG Music on Nashville’s Music Row with Kurt Allison (“Anytime Soon,” “Seein’ Red”) and Lydia Vaughan (“If I Didn’t Love You,” “Bar None”), and on his commute, that personal moment started to feel like the foundation for a song. “’Cry Baby’ — I loved the play on the hook,” Kennedy says. “If you look at ‘Cry Baby,’ there’s so many different ways you can take that.” When he suggested the title at BMG, Vaughan fixated on the option Kennedy preferred, even before he finished explaining it, and they all dove in. Allison had a moody, introspective-sounding musical track that he’d created, and when he played it, Kennedy gave it a thumbs up. “You can’t really go too far down the road if you’re not matching a vibe with [the idea], especially that title,” Allison notes. “That title has to really land in a certain spot.” Kennedy sang the first couple lines in a conversational tone, approximating the apology he’d offered to his wife. The goal was to develop it with phrases that some guy listening in his car could envision saying to his other half: vulnerable, but not weak. “I’m 51 now, so I can look back and be like, ‘Boy, I handled that wrong,’” Kennedy says. “It’s actually been a great tool in my songwriting in these later years, because I can look back on all the things I’ve missed, and got wrong, and was insensitive [about]. I can kind of draw off that well a little bit more than I could a while ago.” The chorus lifted musically, and they hammered the title home in the first line of that section: “I don’t wanna make you cry, baby.” They hit a similar rhyme scheme five times in the chorus — “eyes, baby,” “fight, baby” — emphasizing the “i” rhyme, then backing off on the “baby” part. “It’s easy to sing along to that way,” Vaughan notes, “but it als