Levi Hummon, Cassadee Pope Send Out Unfortunate ‘RSVP’ With New Duet [Listen]

Levi Hummon and Cassadee Pope have teamed up for a vulnerable new ballad, “RSVP," and it will stop broken-hearted listeners in their tracks.

Far from much of Hummon’s releases in recent years, such as the ebullient pop-country “Payin’ for It” with Walker Hayes, "RSVP" primarily features an acoustic guitar as the singers’ stunning tear-soaked vocals take center stage.

“Champagne’s all gone / Carpets full of confetti / Cops came / And we rocked on / I was the life of the party / But I don’t feel that cool / Everyone showed but you,” Hummon and Pope lament in the melancholy chorus after realizing their ex isn’t turning up.

“I wrote this song with Cassadee Pope and Eric Arjes, who also produced the song. The story behind the song is [that] I have so many songs about the actual party that I wanted to write one about the aftermath of the party,” Hummon tells Taste of Country.

“I had been wanting to write with Cassadee for years and went into this session dying to do a collaboration. The song came out incredibly special and we knew we wanted to do this one together,” he continues. “I literally threw away my entire scheduled release plan because I wanted this one out in the world so bad.”

The song’s sparse instrumentation was also very much intentional for Hummon. Despite being known for his upbeat and jaunty party music, the singer-songwriter wanted to let the creative process lead to its eventual sound which, in this case, leaned toward a more stripped-down production.

“So much of my music is about good times and parties, and so it means a lot to put out a song that’s about when the party’s over so to speak, and things aren’t quite what you hoped they would be,” the Nashville native says.

“I knew we wanted to sound like it could fit in any genre not just country, and so we left it wide open for interpretation. Also, it was heavily influenced by Jeff Buckley’s version of 'Hallelujah' and the Plain White Ts. And even more than that Cassadee’s voice is so amazing that it doesn’t need much accompaniment,” adds Hummon.

Accompanying the song is a moody split-framed music video that captures both singers tenderly delivering their parts of the song. Instead of beaming with excitement, Hummon and Pope contemplate their next move and the idea of potentially not showing up.

“I’m so proud of the song Levi, Eric, and I were able to create. It was important to us to really illustrate that ‘will they, won’t they’ scenario that so many of us have gone through,” shares Pope, adding that they “kept Ross and Rachel [from Friends] in our minds the whole process and I think we captured that visual.”

Looking ahead, Hummon says more new music is on the horizon as he’s “been in the studio [for] for the last five months writing and recording and building a new team,” and that fans can hear it all in 2023.