You Should Be Sad

Halsey revealed that they wrote the song in their living room floor, as well in Nashville, and stated that "the most petty and heartbreaking songs all come from country".^[6] When talking about the inspiration for the outfits, Halsey confirmed a number of artists, writing, "Xtina, Gaga, Carrie, and of course Shania, this was one loaded with nods to badass idols of mine. Had the vision to do a 'Before He Cheats' but instead about after he does haha".^[7]

Musically, "You Should Be Sad" is a three minutes and twenty-five seconds acoustic-driven country pop ballad.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} In terms of music notation, "You Should Be Sad" was composed using ⁴
₄ common time in the key of B minor, with a tempo of 120 beats per minute.^[13] The song follows the chord progression of Bm-G-D-F#m/D-G-D-A.^[13] Halsey's vocal range spans from the low note A3 to the high note of E5, giving the song two octaves and four notes of range.^[13]

Lyrically, "You Should Be Sad" is a breakup song about an unfaithful ex-lover.^[14]

Tom Breihan from Stereogum described the song as a "big, pissed-off ballad directed at an ex", while speculating G-Eazy as the subject of the track.^[15] Writing for Vulture, Bethy Squires called the song a "devastating song to do for karaoke in front of an ex".^[16] Kaitlin Reilly of Refinery29 wrote that the track was a "country breakup song" that lyrically "holds nothing back, guaranteeing the song a place on every post-breakup playlist".^[10] Micheal Love Michael from Paper Magazine praised Halsey for being "brave enough to write about it in public", and felt that the lyrics were about "a toxic lover that [Halsey] escaped from".^[17] Aidan Cullen from Billboard wrote about how the song plays on "country-western motifs to bring rootsy weight to Halsey's verbal revenge". Cullen continued with the Tiësto remix of the song, and wrote that the remix "turns up their twang with an ampilified bpm and a big-room blast of a hook" and called the remix a "great warm-up" to Halsey's Manic Tour.^[18]

The song peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, and reached the top 20 on the record charts of several countries, including Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, and Scotland. On the first week of the song's release, the song was played 1,692 times on the Mediabase pop radio. On the week of January 19, 2020, the song was played 4,691 times, reaching number 18 on the Mediabase pop chart.^[19] With 997,990 daily streams in the US, the song reached number 10 on the US Spotify Streaming Chart on January 21, 2020.^[20]

A music video for the song was released alongside the track on January 10, 2020. The video was directed by Colin Tilley. The video depicts Halsey going to "an underground country western nightclub, where a lot of beautiful people are line-dancin". The video makes references to several artists such as Lady Gaga, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Christina Aguilera.^[21]

Upon release, the video received mixed reviews. Tom Breihan of Stereogum called the video "completely ridiculous" though he praised the homage to Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress Me Much".^[22] Stephen Daw of Billboard was more positive in his review, praising the pop culture references to Twain and Lady Gaga's American Horror Story: Hotel character, The Countess.^[23] In an interview with Billboard on the red carpet of the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, Shania Twain commented on the styles that "channels some of Twain's iconic fashion looks", stating that it made her "warm and fuzzy" and felt "flattered", in addition to being "excited to know that they were on the minds of the young artists coming up who appreciated what they were doing at the time".^[24]

For the Season 13 finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, Utica Queen performed the song as a lipsync, dressed in a black bodysuit and cowboy hat while tied up and surrounded by string. In the video, Utica uses scissors to dramatically cut the strings around her as she lipsyncs.