You’ve never heard “Please, Please, Please” like this before. For her popular Kellyoke segment of covers, Kelly Clarkson and her band on The Kelly Clarkson Show performed a country version of Sabrina Carpenter’s recent hit, and she infused the track with overwhelming emotion. The song is centrally about begging a not-so-faithful lover to keep his indiscretions private. In Carpenter’s original, the lyrics—”If you wanna go and be stupid, don’t do it in front of me,” and asking that her man “act” like a stand-up guy and not “embarrass” her—are delivered with a sassy, scolding tone, admonishing a man for being immature.
But former The Voice Coach Clarkson’s rendition was profoundly different. She not only added a distinct Country twang to the track, but she slowed it significantly down, bringing out a searing pain beneath the demand. In Clarkson’s hands, the song became a heartbreaker where the singer, unable to keep him from cheating, is pleading that he at least spare her reputation, if not her heart. The difference was immediately felt by viewers. As one YouTube commenter wrote, “Sabrina’s version is fun and cheeky, Kelly’s version makes me wanna cry lol.” Added another, “Really feels like this was born to be a country ballad 🥹.”
“Ever since I heard the song, for some reason, I hear Dolly Parton singing it as well,” Clarkson told her audience after performing the cover. “I asked my band if we could make a Country version because we have the pop version already,” she continued, explaining, “I love when a song is so good that you can go into different genres with it.” The dramatic shift successfully left the Kellyoke audience in tears. “Please, Please, Please” was Carpenter’s first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and other songs from her album, Short n’ Sweet, have been dominating the airwaves. Carpenter described the project to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show as an extension of herself: “‘Short n’ Sweet’ is sort of like ‘Sabrina’ in another language to me, and it really just feels like all of these stories and memories,” she said, adding that the album is “Very much blunt, very forward, very fun, and just some of the best memories I’ve had over the last two years of writing it. So I’m so excited for everyone to hear it.” Clarkson’s cover proved the raw lyrical quality of the song can transcend genre boundaries.