Avril Lavigne‘s upcoming Greatest Hits tour will span the biggest hits of her career — from “Girlfriend” and “Sk8er Boi” to “What the Hell” and “Complicated.” But the singer is also considering turning the catalog-spanning run into a celebration of the hits that she didn’t even end up releasing herself. During a recent appearance on Call Her Daddy, Lavigne revealed plans to perform Kelly Clarkson‘s “Breakaway” on the tour.
“The lyric used to be, ‘I grew up in a small town, and when the snow would fall down, I would just stare out my window,’” Lavigne said about the song she initially wrote for her debut album, Let Go, in 2001. When it didn’t make the final track list, it made its way to Clarkson, who tweaked the weather in the lyric to “rain” since she didn’t get as much snow down in Texas as Lavigne did in Canada.
“I just wasn’t feeling it, and I’m so glad it went to her,” she said about parting ways with the record. “She killed it. It was a massive hit for her. It’s kind of like just growing, being from a small town and taking a chance, and going into the big city, and going after your dream.”
In 2022, Lavigne released her official version of “Breakaway” while celebrating the 20th anniversary of Let Go. Around the same time, the singer appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show, where the host told her: “Here’s the thing I couldn’t figure out. I was like, why didn’t she do this? I was like, it’s a killer song. But I was like, why wouldn’t she? But I love your album, so I was listening to it and I was like, you were kind of right.” Lavigne and Clarkson agreed that “Breakaway” would have been an outlier among the other recorded songs.
In 2020, Clarkson performed “I’m With You,” another song from Let Go, during the Kellyoke segment of The Kelly Clarkson Show.
“I worked super hard to get to this point where now every single song in my set list is a hit song, a single, or [has] been a really big milestone and part of my career,” Lavigne said on Call Her Daddy. “Making a strong set list is, for me, the biggest thing that goes into the show. But I think every tour has gotten easier. I’ve come out of my shell more as a performer.”