The Singles Jukebox

Straight up or neat? We think this song is both, actually…

[Video][Website]
[6.25]Anthony Easton: I love this song, and I love her voice. I know that it is intended to sell a narrative of authentic country, and I know the honky tonk is a kind of historical performance that has an elegance — the song doesn’t sound as roughed up or hurt as the lyrics do. But the writing is so good, and she knows how when to twang and when to hold back. It also has one of the great sing-along choruses this year, and I am never going to be shitty to the inclusion of pedal steel.
[7]

Crystal Leww: “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)” deals with the dark territory of well-worn country subject matter of alcoholism and makes it even darker by combining it with a heartbreak that is even worse — “but that don’t touch the pain you put on me!” But what makes it stand out is that the whole thing is set over an upbeat, uptempo production. This is practically jangly! “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)” is like when the drunk at the karaoke bar puts on “Need You Now,” grabs a friend and goofily grins through the whole performance, which is surprisingly on-key. People are almost never worried about happy drunks when they’re out — they’re not causing a scene by fighting like angry drunks and rarely need to be comforted in the corner of the bar like sad drunks — but it’s unfortunate because happy drunks are often happy because they’re drunk. At the end of the day, there is often some misery underneath that goofy grin.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Good hook. With a voice as big as Carlene Carter’s, Margo Price takes a look at her life — one in which she drinks whiskey like it’s water — and has a laugh. Good guitar solo too. An exercise, and a wee thing, but well done.
[7]

Brad Shoup: A rollicking arrangement, a co-write with her IRL drinking buddy Caitlin Rose, and the fantastic line “I met you with your thumb out in the alley.” That’s what’s good. But neither Price nor her vocalists can put the mustard on the chorus. The first line’s memorable; the rest dissolves.
[4]

Cassy Gress: This goes through so many repeats of chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus that I have to wonder why this is 4:22 rather than maybe 2:30. I can even see the sheet music in my head with the repeat signs bracketed around all three verses. It’s the type of song where if I was drunk at a bar, and they played this song twice, maybe an hour or two apart, I would hear it the second time and wonder, “have they been playing that song this whole time?”
[4]

Megan Harrington: After reading quite a bit about Margo Price without hearing a note of her music, I’d conjured up a Melissa Ethridge voice in my head. I heard Price, a bit bluesy, a bit low, a bit growling. But “Hurtin'” is a sweet sounding song that belies something much darker. Often, this is the way women are expected to drink — to drunkenness but not to excess. Suitably, Price is reigned in and the restraint shapes her misfortune into a rally cry, but it isn’t fun to cheer for sadness.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: Margo Price worries me not because she admits to heavy drinking. Her whiskey consumption isn’t the most bleak confession, it’s what follows: “That don’t touch the pain you put on me.” She worries me because she shares her habits so lightly. Her behavior is deceivingly easy to take in, with her voice full of pride — “I put a hurtin’ on a bottle!” But I’ve turned to alcohol to forget things too. The most desperate call for help are the ones  least obvious from the outside looking in. I only hope someone hears her out in time.
[8]

A.J. Cohn: The central conceit of the song, to drink so heavily from a bottle so as to almost cause it pain, to be “hurtin’ on the bottle,” perfectly captures the rawness and intensity of this track. Margo Price has a powerful hard-edged country voice with a bluesy rasp — think Loretta Lynn meets Janis Joplin — which she uses to evocative effect. The pain she conveys through her singing, as well as through the excellent lyrics — which include the perfect acid couplet about an ex: “I’ve been drinking whiskey like it’s water/But that don’t touch the pain you put on me,” — make this an exceptional post break-up song. The backing track is very solid, a lean, limber take on classic country instrumentation. The conclusion, a double-time push to an aching close, is especially strong. If there is any relief, it comes from the fact that the fears Price expresses in the song, that no one is hearing her voice, that it is falling on wasted ears, are obviously not true.
[8]