Kelly Clarkson Looks Back at the End of a Relationship in New Song ‘Roses’: ‘We Can’t Be Saved’

Kelly Clarkson doesn’t want any roses.

On Friday, the superstar, 41, shared “Roses,” a new song off the upcoming deluxe version of her album Chemistry (out Sept. 22 via Atlantic Records).

The “Piece By Piece” singer pours over a romance that’s run its course on the new mid-tempo pop track. Emotion flows through her powerhouse vocals throughout as she proclaims that there “ain’t enough roses” to salvage the relationship.

She sings on the chorus, “It’s too late for roses, they’ll die in a day / You can’t put a band-aid on the way that we’re breakin’ / It’s too late for diamonds, they all come with chains / So don’t waste your money on it, we can’t be saved / There ain’t enough roses, no.”

Although, there’s no sense of thorniness to her tone; the Grammy winner simply sounds strong enough to admit they “can’t be saved.”

On another verse, she offers the heart-wrenching lines, “And every day, I miss you less / How does love fade ’til there’s nothin’ even left? / Like your flowers, we dried up / I don’t like your kind of love / There’s nothin’ left to say / Keep your words, you never mean them anyway.”

Clarkson first released her 10th studio album Chemistry in June. It debuted at No. 6 atop the Billboard 200 albums chart.

The upcoming expanded version features a total of 22 tracks, including five new additions, a live version and a remix of her song “Mine,” as well as a remix of “Favorite Kind of High.” One song, “You Don’t Make Me Cry,” even includes a feature of her daughter River Rose, 9, whom she shares with ex-husband Brandon Blackstock.

The American Idol alum and Blackstock, 46, divorced in 2020 after nearly seven years of marriage. The couple and parents to two — River Rose and Remington Alexander, 7 — settled the divorce in May of this year.

The host of The Kelly Clarkson Show has opened up about how their separation affected her ideas of love. In a Podcrushed podcast interview released in June, she said, “When you do go through a divorce, especially with young kids, the definition of love comes up quite a bit.”

The “Favorite Kind of High” artist explained that her children have asked her if she still loves their father and has since told them, “I love that Daddy gave me you two. We just don’t like each other like we did. It’s just different now.”

The singer-songwriter also spoke to ​​Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the end of her marriage in a June interview. She shared, “I literally said to my therapist, and it wasn’t even, honestly, we weren’t even divorced. We weren’t separated then. It was like, when we first started talking, it was marriage counseling. It was trying to make it work. ‘We’re trying to figure it out. I desperately want to make this happen,’ but I think I knew in my heart it just wasn’t going to.”