Charlie Puth, Gabby Barrett unite for gender-swapped 'I Hope' remix: Cheating is not exclusive to males
Singer-songwriter Gabby Barrett has just released a new version of her ex-bashing 2019 hit, 'I Hope', made in collaboration with pop star Charlie Puth. The duo unveiled the track this weekend, and also appeared on Amazon Live on Friday, April 17, to talk about the making of the new remix.
Barrett is best known for achieving the third place on the popular TV singing competition 'American Idol' in 2018 after it was first rebooted on the ABC network for its 16th season overall. She picked up a legion of fans thanks to her singing exploits, and her new single, 'I Hope' which was released independently in January 2019, got such extensive airplay that Warner Music Nashville signed her to a record deal in May that same year.
The song eventually hit No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was No. 2 on the Country Airplay and Hot Country Songs charts.
'I Hope' was an edgy song about a cheating ex-boyfriend from Barrett's high school years. It was a smash hit that set Barrett free from her previously carefully-cultivated, clean-cut 'Idol' image. Although she was still in a loving relationship and later married her fellow 'American Idol' contestant Cade Foehner in October 2019, Barrett revealed that she wanted to release that track so that people could get to know the actual human being behind the public persona they saw on TV, and hopefully connect with her on a more intimate level.
She candidly stated, "I wanted people to get an idea of who I am and what I’ve been through — how I was as a person before."
'I Hope' talks about Barrett hoping that her cheating ex-boyfriend would eventually end up with a girl who also cheated on him. It struck a chord with the American public, and the video for the song has already amassed a whopping 42 million hits on YouTube alone. The R&B elements of the song impressed the Grammy-nominated artiste, Charlie Puth, so he was instantly down for collaborating with Barrett.
“I remember hitting up everybody at my label being like, ‘I know I'm not a country artist, but I just want to sing on this song. Can you make that happen?'” Puth revealed in his recent Amazon Live chat. “And I’m very happy that it’s happened.”
When Barrett eventually teamed-up on the remix with Charlie Puth, they decided to change it up a wee bit. When Puth sang the second verse on the new version, they decided to switch it around to make it appropriate for a male's point of view — so Puth sings "I hope he cheats" instead of "she cheats."
Puth revealed his thought process behind the pronoun change in the same Amazon Live chat — "What if the same thing [cheating] was happening to the guy, but they weren’t telling each other?” Puth revealed, adding that cheating was not exclusive to only males.
“It doesn’t just happen to a girl. It can also happen to a guy as well. Love is love, hurt is hurt.”