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Sorry (Original Demo)

Beyoncé

2016

Sorry (Original Demo)

Release Date:  2016

By Pitchfork

Reviewed April 22, 2019

The bonus track comes from the newly streaming version of her 2016 album, Lemonade.

Two-plus hours of Homecoming documentary film, a stellar accompanying live album, and still the Beyoncé vaults have more treasure to be found. “Sorry (Original Demo),” a previously unreleased version of the Lemonade track that appeared—along with the rest of the album—on streaming services today, envisions a full song crafted from what became the sorrowful final verse of the album cut. This “Sorry” demo doesn’t include the titular line, nor several other memorable Lemonade catchphrases—no “suck on my balls,” no “middle fingers up,” no “boy bye.” It’s an earlier draft not just of a song but of an emotion, the hurt fresher even as the frustration starts to boil.

Sadness weighs heavy on the “Sorry” demo, both in the tear-stained instrumental loop and in Beyoncé’s softened delivery. A dreamy wisp of a chorus interpolates Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa’s “Young, Wild & Free”—an anthem for carefree good times that must’ve seemed like a distant fantasy amid the deceit that inspired “Sorry.” In this moment, Beyoncé hasn’t yet arrived at the defiance of an “I ain’t sorry.” She is, as she sings here, “Tryin’ to keep my family right,” and if she’s not quite feeling sorry for herself, certainly she’s sorry things turned out like this. “Better call Becky with the good hair/You only want me when I’m not there,” she sings, a devastating permutation of the lines ultimately inverted for maximum go-fuck-yourself impact.

8:00 PM · Apr 22, 2019