Story Behind the Song: Gabby Barrett, ‘The Good Ones’
Gabby Barrett followed up her No. 1 debut single "I Hope" with a song that's a complete change of message: Whereas "I Hope" expresses wishes for karma to strike an ex, "The Good Ones" is a love song for the ones worth holding onto.
In Barrett's case, that's her husband, fellow musician Cade Foehner. The two met while competing during Season 16 of American Idol in 2018; they got engaged in March of 2019 and married in October of that same year.
Barrett co-wrote "The Good Ones" with Emily Landis, Jim McCormick and Zachary Kale. Below, she shares the story behind the song in her own words.
It was inspired by, of course, [Cade], and it was a really fun song to write.
At the time, when we were writing it -- it was me, Zach Kale and a couple other people who wrote it last year -- I had just been thinking of when we were dating, at the time during American Idol, people in my family would ask me, like, "How's your boyfriend doing?" And I'd be like, "Oh, he's good. He's a good one. He's a keeper."
And I've heard other girls say that, too: like, "Oh, he's a good one." I've heard "a good one" said a few times.
And so I was like, "I need to write a song for the good ones," because with "I Hope," it's like, I don't want to give people this false hope of just saying all relationships stink and you can't ever trust anybody, because that's definitely not the case.