Criminal

"Criminal" is a song recorded by Canadian country music singer Lindsay Ell for her third studio album, The Project (2017). Ell co-wrote the song with Fred Wilhelm and Chris Stevens, while Kristian Bush of Sugarland produced the track. It was released to American country radio on December 11, 2017 through Stoney Creek Records as the album's second single. "Criminal" peaked at numbers 19 and 28 on the Billboard Country Airplay and Hot Country Songs charts, respectively, marking Ell's first top 40 single on the former and first charting entry on the latter. In Canada, the song also peaked at number one on the Canada Country chart, becoming the first single by a Canadian solo female artist to do so since 2008. Composition "Criminal" is a guitar-driven country rock song whose production has been described as more "accessible" than Ell's previous singles. Lyrically, the song describes the "early torment" of a surprising new love and compares the stealing of her heart to literal theft. Ell elaborated to Radio.com that she wrote the song about being grateful for the way some people, "will walk into your life, and you don't really know where they came from or how they came at the time they did," and that the criminal allegory is a "really happy" one. It was one of the first songs written for The Project, and Ell told KNIX-FM that she "knew ["Criminal"] was going to be important to me and my career," when it was recorded in 2016. Release and promotion "Criminal" was announced as the follow-up to her breakthrough single, "Waiting on You", in November 2017. It was made available to country radio in the United States through PlayMPE on November 17, 2017 and received 10 adds. The song was officially promoted to radio on December 11, 2017. For that week, the song was picked up by an additional 51 radio stations and served as the week's most-added single.