One of the most haunting and deeply personal tracks on the Regrets album, Should’ve Listened is a chilling conversation between past and present selves, between hope and harsh reality. The song is built on internal conflict, self-recrimination, and the painful realization that warnings were ignored—and the consequences followed.

This track is not just about regret—it’s about the battle between intuition and denial, between knowing the truth and refusing to accept it until it’s too late. The personification of Britney in the mirror serves as a raw, unfiltered reflection of the narrator’s own ignored instincts, the voice of reason that was always there but was silenced in the hope of something better.

The intro is soft, eerie, and almost hypnotic, setting a tone of grief, self-blame, and eerie acceptance. The opening hums feel like a ghost whispering in the dark, a lingering presence that’s always been there, waiting to be acknowledged.

The first verse is filled with remorse, as the narrator speaks softly, almost trembling, reflecting on all the red flags they ignored:
"You warned me, but I still believed,
Tried to fix what was meant to leave."
The pain isn’t just about betrayal—it’s about knowing deep down that it was coming and choosing to believe in the lie anyway.

Then comes Britney’s response from the mirror—cold, unforgiving, and brutally honest. She is unapologetic, cutting straight through the narrator’s excuses:
"Oh, now you fuckin’ hear me?
Took you long enough, bitch, clearly."
Her words tear into every bad choice, every ignored warning, every time the narrator chose blind faith over reality. She speaks with anger, frustration, and exhaustion, having watched the narrator fall for the same patterns over and over again.

The choruses are built on vocal cracks and stutters, mimicking the narrator’s emotional breakdown. The stuttering on "I— I should’ve li-li-listened" reflects hesitation, regret, and suppressed tears. The humming woven throughout feels like the sound of memories replaying, echoes of past warnings looping back in the present.

The third verse shifts the song’s tone to a desperate, sorrowful plea. The narrator acknowledges Britney’s words but tries to justify their choices, admitting the fear of being alone, the longing for connection, the false hope that people would stay:
"I know you’re right, I know you knew,
But it’s hard to let go when it felt so true."
This moment is a tragic confession—sometimes, we cling to lies not because we don’t see the truth, but because we aren’t ready to face it.

The bridge is Britney’s final, unfiltered reality check, hitting harder than before:
"How many times did I tell you, huh?
How many times did you ignore me, huh?"
There’s no sympathy, no sugarcoating, just an unrelenting slap of truth. The frustration is clear—Britney isn’t just angry at the people who hurt the narrator, she’s angry at the narrator for continuing to let it happen.

By the final chorus, the song erupts into an explosion of grief and fury, as the narrator finally releases all the pain they were trying to suppress. The last lines in the outro are eerily quiet, like a whisper in the dark, as Britney’s voice echoes through the mirror one last time:
"I told you, bitch."
It’s not said with anger anymore—it’s just fact. The warning was always there.

The song ends not with peace, but with echoes—because regret never fully fades, it just lingers like a ghost, waiting for the next time it needs to be heard.

Should’ve Listened is a masterpiece of self-confrontation, serving as a pivotal moment in the Regrets album. It forces the listener to question their own ignored instincts, to remember the times they silenced their own inner warnings. The eerie, hypnotic tone and deeply personal lyrics make it one of the most emotionally intense songs on the album.

Should’ve listened

Expressing Myself through, Lyrics and Music is my way of cooping in this world <3

New tracks tagged #selfconfrontation