“Love You Too Late”: How Cole Swindell's real-life experience changed what was supposed to be an “uptempo,” “party song”

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ABC/Image Group LACole Swindell wrote his latest hit with two of his “favorite writers — favorite people, forget the writer part,” he says.

Even though they’ve been collaborating a long time, “Love You Too Late” is their first single together.

Brandon Kinney and Michael Carter, we’ve been writing together before my first album ever came out,” Cole explains. “You know, we wrote several things on each album.”

“I’ve always thought that songs we had written before would be singles,” he continues. “It never has, but this one, you know, it’s the first track on the new album and I remember writing this with them.”

Though the threesome set out to write a happy, feel-good tune, Cole still managed to infuse it with some regret — perhaps because he’s experienced the emotion of “Love You Too Late” in real life.

“We love the uptempo stuff and we love the party songs, kind of like ‘Reason to Drink,'” he says. “We’ve written all of those together.”

“I don’t think we had the title…” he recalls. “It was just ‘She’s out there rolling,'” he sings.

“We got it going, and I think when we got to the end of it, I just remember saying, ‘Imagine telling somebody you love them too late [when] it doesn’t even matter anymore, you know.’ And just like every song I’ve put out, I’ve lived this one too,” he confesses.

Cole’s top five hit, “Love You Too Late,” is the second single from his All of It album, following the number one “Break Up in the End.” It topped the chart in October of last year.

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