Lady A Recorded This Heartbreaking Song That Ryan Hurd Intended To Use for Himself

The heartache is palpable in Lady A’s 2019 single, “What If I Never Get Over You”. The No. 1 single, from their Ocean album, is written by Ryan Hurd, Sam Ellis, Laura Veltz, and Jon Green. Although the song seems tailor-made for Lady A’s tight harmonies, Hurd later reveals he wrote “What If I Never Get Over You” for himself instead,

The tragic tune reflects on the fear of a love that got away, which might never be replicated. The song says, “It’s supposed to hurt, it’s a broken heart / But the moving on is the hardest part / It comes in waves, the letting go / But the memory fades, everybody knows / Everybody knows / What if I’m trying, but then I close my eyes / And then I’m right back, lost in that last goodbye? / And what if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do? / What if I never get over you?”

“The easiest answer is that I don’t feel like I have a platform at the moment for a song like this, the way Lady A does,” Hurd says, explaining his decision to let Lady A have the song. “They’ve recorded a couple of my songs where they kind of looked at me and said, ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ ‘Well, because you can make it a hit.’”

The Story Behind Lady A’s “What If I Never Get Over You”

Hurd originally wrote “What If I Never Get Over You” for himself. But he began with a slightly different title, “If I Never Get Over You”, instead.

“I wanted to write it from the perspective of, ‘If I never got over you, what would I do? Where would I be?’” Hurd tells American Songwriter. “Laura said, ‘No, it’s ‘What If I Never Get Over You.’’ She changed the perspective of the title. Jon is spiritual with melodies. He started singing that chorus melody, and it all came together.”

Regardless of what the original title was or who Hurd initially wrote “What If I Never Get Over You” for, all three Lady A members loved the song the first time they heard it. For the trio, it felt like a great follow-up, a decade later, to their monster hit “Need You Now”.

“To me, this song just stands out so much because it asks so many great questions that are unanswered,” Dave Haywood says. “What if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do? What if I never get over you?”

“I think we’ve all been there,” he adds. “And I think that’s what’s always been so powerful about ‘Need You Now.’”

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