‘Mr. Predictable’ by Avery Anna - Lyrics & Meaning

Arriving in February 2025 as the lead single from Avery Anna's keenly anticipated sophomore album, ‘Mr. Predictable’ doubles down on the powerful, deeply vulnerable and conversational ambience the country prodigy has always laced into her music.

It finds the Arizona native addressing an old flame that cheated on her, with Avery Anna movingly dedicating the track to all her fans that have fallen victim to a similar situation.

Avery Anna signposted which songs would be stripped-back, piano-driven ballads and which would be rage-worthy, electric-guitar-backed anthems on her previous album, Breakup Over Breakfast, by de-capitalising the former and capitalising the latter.

What's striking about ‘Mr. Predictable’ is that it feels like the perfect blend of both of these dimensions to Avery Anna's sound. The track opens as a sparse, intricate offering, with Anna's enchanting, visceral vocals floating tenderly across her keys.

It feels reminiscent of earlier fan-favourites such as ’Just Cause I Love You’, until we get the sudden, stark introduction of layered vocals and an emphatic, violent drum pattern partway through the second verse, transforming this into an angsty, fired-up earworm.

‘Mr. Predictable’ highlights the evolution that we're seeing from Avery Anna's artistry, as she continues to maintain a lyrical openness that feels like she's drawing straight from her journal, while playing with more rock-leaning, tempestuous textures.

“Another apology

Didn’t you promise me

The last time would be the last time

Well here we are again

What a coincidence

No I’m not losin’ my mind”

‘Mr. Predictable’ opens with Avery Anna underlining how jaded she's grown of her partner's half-hearted, insincere apologies, as she rebukes him for betraying her trust once more. She implies he's trying to gaslight her and make her feel as though she's misunderstood what's going on, but she stands her ground, stressing, “No I'm not losin’ my mind”, as she reveals that she knows he's cheating on her.

“Said don’t worry

About Scarlet

Cause you’re just friends

And I bought it

Funny how I felt it In my stomach

So I parked outside her apartment”

The protagonist recalls how her boyfriend tried to convince her a while ago that there was nothing untoward going on, after she started growing suspicious of how close he was getting to a woman named ‘Scarlet’, regretting how she believed him.

She decides to drive to her apartment, where she presumably sees him with her. The choice of the name ‘Scarlet’ could be a thinly veiled reference to the phrase ‘Scarlet Woman’.

“Mr. Predictable

Why’re you so difficult

I knew it right from the start

Makin' me miserable

I feel unlovable

Go ahead and tear us apart

Like you always do

Wish it wasn’t true”

Throughout the hook, Avery Anna lists a few of the ways in which Mr. Predictable has made her life miserable, causing her to feel “unlovable”. She emphasises that she wishes he could do better, but it's clear he's been given plenty of chances to improve, yet he's ended up being ‘predictable’ in his disappointing behaviour.

“Mr. Predictable

Don’t think you’re fixable

I knew it right from the start

You’d break my heart”

Here, the narrator suggests that she had a niggling feeling from the get-go that her boyfriend would ultimately break her heart, but she convinced herself he would change his ways.

“I tried to trust

An untrustable, cynical

Typical self-centered man

I saw things I shouldn’t see

In your recently deleted

You’re a liar

You’re deceivin’

Hate that I was right about every feelin’”

Again, Avery Anna highlights that she did her best to believe him when he told her he'd stop falling into his destructive habits, but as she suspected, this was all smoke and mirrors.

She lays it out plainly, labelling her boyfriend - well, hopefully now ‘ex’ - “a liar”, before reiterating that she should have trusted her gut about him, rather than his false reassurances.

During a TikTok update shared in the lead-up to ‘Mr. Predictable’'s release date, Avery Anna explained that she'd penned the infectious track in honour of her fans, “I'm releasing ‘Mr. Predictable’ on Friday. Lots of you have told me about your cheater-boyfriends or cheater-girlfriends, so this one's for you, because I feel for you”.

“Another apology

Didn’t you promise me

The last time would be the last time

Well here we are again

What a coincidence

No I’m not losin’ my mind

-

Said don’t worry

About Scarlet

Cause you’re just friends

And I bought it

Funny how I felt it In my stomach

So I parked outside her apartment

-

Mr. Predictable

Why’re you so difficult

I knew it right from the start

Makin' me miserable

I feel unlovable

Go ahead and tear us apart

Like you always do

Wish it wasn’t true

-

Mr. Predictable

Don’t think you’re fixable

I knew it right from the start

You’d break my heart

-

I tried to trust

An untrustable, cynical

Typical self-centered man

I saw things I shouldn’t see

In your recently deleted

You’re a liar

You’re deceivin’

Hate that I was right about every feelin’

-

Mr. Predictable

Why’re you so difficult

I knew it right from the start

Makin' me miserable

I feel unlovable

Go ahead and tear us apart

Like you always do

Wish it wasn’t true

-

Mr. Predictable

Don’t think you’re fixable

I knew it right from the start

You’d break my heart

-

Said don’t worry

About Scarlet

I should’ve worried about Scarlet

I knew that you would do

Exactly what you did (oh)

-

Mr. Predictable

Why’re you so difficult

I knew it right from the start

Makin' me miserable

I feel unlovable

Go ahead and tear us apart

Like you always do

Wish it wasn’t true

-

Mr. Predictable

Don’t think you’re fixable

I knew it right from the start

You’d break my heart”

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