Brett Young pours his heart into his latest breakup song, despite being happily married and a devoted family man. Still, Young channeled previous feelings of devastation post-breakup as he wrote “You Didn’t,” which he worked on in between the births of his two daughters. Young recalled that he wasn’t in a “heartbreak headspace” at the time — and neither were his happily-married cowriters — but he and his wife, Taylor Mills Young, previously broke up and rekindled their relationship. The country artist deemed it “the most painful break up I ever went through,” so he relied on old emotions to write a heartache anthem. He explained:
“It was after Presley was born, before Rowan was born, and I certainly wasn’t in a heartbreak headspace. And in fact, the other three writers on the song are happily married as well. When we had the idea and we all were excited about writing this concept, we all needed to take kind of a moment of silence and go back somewhere. I never stopped and asked the guys where they went. The interesting thing for me is that me and Taylor, my wife, were broken up for two years and then got back together. The most painful break up I ever went through was when I broke up with her, and so that’s where I went when we wrote this one. I’ve written break up songs about my wife when we were broken up but this is the first time I’ve written a break up song about my wife when we’re back together and everything’s good.”
Young premiered the “You Didn’t music video earlier this year. The video stars Mills Young as the country singer’s ex, who didn’t fall in love the way he did. Young said in a statement at the time that the narrator of the song “is saying all the right things so his girl doesn’t feel guilty, but then the video sheds light on how much of that is a lie, and how deeply he’s actually struggling.” Watch the video here: