The Singles Jukebox

It all adds up…

[Video]
[6.62]

Nortey Dowuona: This slowly envelops you as the guitar temples, the bass hums, and the banjo twinkles alongside the piano as the drums leisurely stroll through the wreckage of Carly’s burned and crumpled relationship, sung through her soothing croon.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: Not Southern gothic, but almost country gothic: this busbee production sounds like little else he’s done, and like absolutely nothing on country radio right now. Pearce has an highly emotive voice and a breathy delivery which serves this song’s dark lyrics well. And with busbee in her corner, who knows? She could be the next Maren Morris, if there’s more where this came from.
[8]

Leela Grace: If the arrangement is a little predictable, the vocal too smooth — well, it’s a first single, and “Burning House” is long past, and we take what we can get on country radio. The vulnerability in Pearce’s lyrics makes my breath catch. I have spent months of my life waiting for memories to be so worn-out they carry no weight; this song is a good way to pass three minutes of that. 
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Sunny Sweeney used to make songs this scorched. Pearce’s says more in its deliberate piano chords — and especially in its twanging, unspooling guitar solo — than it does in its scant detail.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Carly Peace got to think a lot bigger for “Every Little Thing.” If you’re going to emote that much in the chorus, “the high, the hurt, the shine, the sting” got to refer to a lot more than leftover scents and pretty eyes.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Her voice could commit to the underselling and the piano could be less present, but it is haunting in its formal prettiness. 
[8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I’m enamored by the drums and how their reverberating creates this cavernous space. The constant quarter notes seem like they’re assuaging pain through a firm steadiness but they only become a source of unremitting anxiety. It sets a tone that’s emblematic of late nights spent reliving the details of a failed relationship, where one’s stomach turns with each recalled memory. And yet, “Every Little Thing” moves along far too hurriedly for its listeners to soak in the gravity of Pearce’s heartbreak. As a result, the pause in the bridge ends up being the song’s most harrowing moment. When it quickly returns to the chorus — something that feels rushed itself when repeated — it’s clear how affecting this song would be if fleshed out. Even then, it’s hard to say how resonant this would be with those cliché descriptions in the first verse.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: The song is a bit too slow and the first verse is full of familiar imagery that borderlines on cliche, but the second verse, the bridge, and Carly’s delivery more than makes up for it. Sleeping with a ghost shouldn’t be a devastating lyric, but it hurts when Carly utters the line with such quiet anguish. The pacing feels too slow at the beginning, but as the story unfolds and she finally reveals that the pain is so great that death is an option for her, it all makes sense. I’ve been as hurt as the narrator of the song is, I’ve contemplated some very dark things before, and the sequencing and pacing feels very familiar when recalling those especially trying times. I don’t know that I could play this too often because of just how slowly the song moves, but it’s a refreshing feeling to hear an experience you’ve lived through, however painful, sung so beautifully. 
[7]