“Park Enthusiast”: Kelsea Ballerini Teases Next Chapter - Is She Finally Releasing ‘The Garden’?

They say “nature's symphony” has an exceedingly beautiful melody, and with Kelsea Ballerini's stellar songwriting abilities, a wildlife-inspired project would undoubtedly sound incredible. Is Ballerini about to release a garden-themed body of work?

The ‘Baggage’ hitmaker has officially closed the chapter on her celebrated PATTERNS era, with Ballerini taking to socials to hint that a major announcement is coming tomorrow (Thursday, November 5th). Judging by the countdown in her Instagram Story, the mysterious news will drop at 2pm UK time / 8am CT.

The countdown has been accompanied by a brief clip of Ballerini swinging playfully in a park, alongside the caption, “I sit in parks...” Interestingly, the ‘half of my hometown’ singer-songwriter has also changed her Instagram bio to “park enthusiast”.

Her new profile picture, meanwhile, features Ballerini obscuring her face with her hands, with her wrists adorned with a multitude of watches. Fans are now desperately speculating as to what this means, with Ballerini seemingly gearing up to unveil her next body of work, which seemingly pivots around the theme or ‘parks’ and ‘time’.

Given the fact that ‘parks’ are almost definitely a source of inspiration here - and potentially even a clue as to the title of Ballerini's PATTERNS follow-up album - we're hoping this means the unreleased track, ‘The Garden’, may finally see the light of day.

Before PATTERNS was officially announced, this writer infamously theorised that the album would be called The Garden, due to Ballerini's teasers related to a flowers and foliage. We also uncovered a song registered on ASCAP with the same title, co-written by Ballerini, Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild and Alysa Vanderheym.

We were ultimately way off, and we resigned ourselves to the prospect of never getting to hear ‘The Garden’. But now, with a park-based project appearing to be on the horizon, perhaps ‘The Garden’ is being readied as a keystone of Ballerini's next era.

Given how beautifully evocative and enchanting Ballerini's track record of co-writes with Fairchild and Vanderheym is - with the trio working on ‘To The Men That Love Women After Heartbreak’ alongside Hillary Lindsey, for instance - we sincerely hope we're getting ‘The Garden’ on the country trailblazer's next studio album...

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