Kelsea Ballerini released “I Sit In Parks” on November 7, 2025, and honestly, it lodges itself in your head immediately.
Not because it’s an earworm in the traditional sense but because it says something most people think about and never admit.
She’s sitting in parks, wearing dark sunglasses, watching families she doesn’t have. Feels a bit like overhearing someone’s private thoughts.
Her voice is what sells it. The way she sings about hitting the vape and hallucinating nurseries with Noah’s Ark, or refilling her Lexapro prescription while watching couples on blankets, you believe she’s been exactly here.
She’s not performing vulnerability. She’s just vulnerable. Makes a difference when you’re tackling the impossible juggle of wanting a career and wanting kids before biology makes the decision for you.
Fundamentally, the song tackles that specific flavour of panic when you realise you’ve spent a decade chasing something and maybe forgot to check if it’s actually what you wanted.
“We look about the same age / But we don’t have the same Saturdays” captures the entire dilemma in one comparison.
You’re the same age as people pushing swings at the park but you’re on tour buses instead and suddenly you’re wondering if you’ve made a terrible mistake. The lyrics meaning here isn’t subtle but it doesn’t need to be.
Now, the track ends abruptly. “Tarryn’s due in June / The album’s due in March” and then it’s done.
Part of me wants another verse, some resolution, something to soften the landing. But maybe that’s the point? She hasn’t sorted this out yet.
The song ends mid-thought because the thought hasn’t finished. As a single choice it does feel incomplete, like we’re getting a fragment rather than the full picture.
Within the Mount Pleasant EP it might make perfect sense but on its own it leaves you hanging.
What gets me is how Ballerini refuses to pick a side. She’s not declaring she made the wrong choice or the right one.
She’s questioning why it has to be either/or in the first place. Why does chasing Rolling Stone features mean giving up other possibilities?
She keeps her distance throughout, observing rather than drowning in it, like she’s watching other people’s lives from behind those dark glasses. That brutal honesty without becoming maudlin, that’s her strength.
The production is stripped back. Mid-tempo, laid back but with an uneasiness underneath that mirrors what she’s singing about.
Nothing flashy, just her voice doing the heavy lifting. As a lead single from the EP, it signals a proper shift in direction.
This feels like Ballerini at her most interesting, willing to ditch the polish and just be honest about what keeps her up at night.