Jim Malec | August 25th, 2009

Songwriters: Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo & Tony Verges.

The most powerful songs are often born from exposing a simple truth that is the root of a given emotion; they are born when their writers break through the barrier of convolution that stands between what we know how to say and what we feel, when clouded and distorted context makes way for raw essentiality.

There is no more essential post break-up question than this one: Didn’t you know how much I loved you?

It’s a question that comes from an emotional wellspring that runs far deeper than anger or resentment. Didn’t you know how much I loved you? Even in wake of the singer’s broken heart and her realization that she must move on, even after her attempts to “make sense of it all,” the remnant pain seeps through those eight words: I gave you everything I had, every bit of myself. Why wasn’t it enough? Didn’t you know how much I loved you?

There can be no heart more painfully broken than one that breaks with a sharp shot; the long goodbye prepares us for the inevitable, but a strike from the blindside leaves us disoriented. And while Pickler’s performance on most of this song is thin but pleasant, there is a great disparity between the song’s verses and chorus–when Pickler hits the song’s melodic peak she’s soaring, squeezing out every bit of power and emotion her voice can muster. She connects with this question like someone whose heart has been so genuinely torn apart.

“Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You” is not a great song, because outside of the chorus it is entirely disposable and generic. But “Didn’t you know

Didn’t you know how much I loved you? We will remember that line thanks to Pickler, who knocks it out of the ballpark.

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