#459 - Nashville's Best Female Songwriters: Stories from Liz Rose, Lori McKenna, Nicolle Galyon, Jessi Alexander & More!

Published Jul 2, 2024, 5:05 AM

In this special episode, we've taken stories from past episodes where Bobby talked with some of Nashville's best female songwriters! You'll hear from Liz Rose, Lori McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Nicolle Galyon, Heather Morgan, Jessi Alexander, Emily Weisband, Jessie Jo Dillon and Sarah Buxton. These ladies have written some of the biggest hits for some of the biggest artists, including: Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Brett Eldredge and Dan + Shay! They'll share stories about being super vulnerable, what inspired them to write these songs and what put them on the map as Nashville's best songwriters.

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Ladies and gentlemen.

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This is the Bobby Cast.

Hey, welcome to a special episode of the Bobby Cast. What's been Cool? Over the years, I've sat down with so many amazing songwriters who have written some of the biggest hits in country music. And in this episode, I'm shining the spotlight on the female songwriters that I've talked to. I mean, they're awesome. They've written hits for Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Brett Eldridge, Miley Cyrus, Faith Hill, Dan and Shay the list goes on. Really cool episode here to hear stories from women who are really at the heart of these songs that we hear on the radio every day. Now, I'm going to play some clips from interviews that I've done with Liz Rose, who was known for writing a lot of the early Taylor stuff, Laurie McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Nicole Gallion. I could keep going, but I'm not going to because I want you to hear this. They talk about their inspiration for songs, how to write a great song, how their songs get into the hands of major artists. So let's kick things off with Liz Rose. You know I mentioned he Ller Swift. She wrote songs like you Belong with Me and Tim McGraw with Taylor back when Taylor was a teenager. Here she is les Rose. Okay, so here you are you start songwriting and.

How old about thirty eight?

It's a whole new career.

For me.

Back then, I was raising I was a single mom, so I had a kid in college and I had two little girls. And if somebody said I'm going to pay you X amount to do this, I said yes, And I figured out how to do it because I was just paying the bills, you know, never dreaming that I would make enough money to really live on or retire on. I I just thought, Okay, there's a little bit extra money each month, I'll do this. So that's kind of how I never looked at the big picture, because I knew the big picture was not great. I mean, I worked with songwriters, but I didn't care. I was I had a publishing company, I was writing songs, and I had this thing over here, and I mean I just kept moving.

I just keep going.

I was on a flight once, I think it was from maybe Texas to Nashville, and I was getting out to fly. This is about five years ago, and that person I was with say, hey, do you know that wasn't behind you us? I did not. She was that's the one who wrote all the songs with Taylor Swift. And I said, oh, I didn't. I didn't know that. And so I saw you then and I thought, oh, you know, how about that? That's cool? I didn't. I didn't at that time. I didn't know many songwriters. I don't really got into the world. You end up having friends that make their living by creating and either putting it out themselves or giving it to other people. And so now I remember back to that flight and first of all, going, why is the one who wrote all the songs with Taylor Swift flying Southwest? That's what I was thinking, because I love Southwest? I do too. I love Southwest too, and people give it a hard time. But do you feel like that's been phase maybe two of your identity, the Taylor Swift Because and now I did I know you as Liz rose from as a writer more from the Love Junkies than I do the Taylor Swift stuff. But I wonder where that falls into your phases in your in the creative part of your life.

It's funny because my first phase was.

Songs about rain, and I was getting Leam Womat cuts and Trisha Yearwood cuts, and I had a certain thing that I did that everybody really really loved, which is why Taylor started writing with me. Was that thing and just the I don't know, I think it was the pictures, the descriptive if I I learned how to do it.

And I and I and I.

Was pretty good at it, just writing those pictures, and so I think that she heard and then she heard me sing a couple of those songs and asked me to write. So my first phase was really songs about rain. You know, I felt like I was Everybody thought I was, oh man, she's cool. She's writing with Past McLoughlin and they're writing, you know, songs like that. And then the tailor thing happened and it was no different. I just you know, it was like my second or third rite on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, I can't remember.

So I just did it.

This this girl showed up.

She came in with a melody and an idea, and she was exciting and excited, and it was hour and a half two hours, and I just kept doing it, never really thinking about that. But when it really blew up, I was I can remember people going, why are you writing with a fourteen year old? And I said, well, because she comes in and it's easy and it's fun. You know, I love listening to her stories. So I caught once it blew up, you know, everybody was like, wow, I can't believe you were so smart to do that. I just did it because I liked doing it. So that was a phase because suddenly I was the person that wrote songs for sixteen year old girls, and.

I had to go through a lot.

Of explaining to people that that was not me, it was Taylor and so and it was real easy to kind of lean back during those years, you know, and then I kind of had to like really hit it to get that to go, Okay, but I can do this and I can do this. Yeah, and so crazy Girl win in the ACM that year kind of that that helped a lot. And then girl Crush for me, and and perception wise it didn't go, oh, the Taylor Swift thing is off. It's just like it just added to it. You know that the Taylor Swift years will always be part huge part you know of what I did, and do you know if she called me right now, I'd go.

You know, they feel like the Taylor stuff. Do you try to get a bit away from that? Now? Is that the first thing brought up everywhere? Because again I don't only know you as Taylor the Tailor writer, I know you as the Love Junkies writer.

Well, I don't try and get away from it, because I'm really proud of it. It's a huge part of my life in my career and a lot I had a career before, but my career is you know, it will always be connected to having those Tailor songs, and I'm really proud of them, and I and I never you know, I just I'm so lucky, you know, and we wrote such great songs. So I don't try and get away from it.

What I do.

What I do try and do and I don't always, is that I continue to get people that want to interview me and want and they start talking and then they don't want to talk about anything but Taylor, and I'm like, that was kind of ten years ago, and I'm not going to give you information on Taylor I don't have.

So they're digging for.

Digging for Taylor, and they're trying to make like this is not what we're doing, but they try and make their story. You know, they're they're whatever they're doing is is they can you know, highlight Taylor's name in it? You know what I'm saying.

Well, to be fair, I think people just want clicks the same way the songs want plays. And if they're chasing a click, the kind of story, what's the best headline to put in there? But and I just wondered that about you. If so many people are coming to you to get the clickbait stuff to go, it's not even clickbait, Like it's interesting, you know the fact that you know Taylor Swift was playing Tim McGraw that the first time Amy metter at our radio station. Like you wrote that with Taylor right and right roll together. I mean, when you sit down and write a song about an artist again, we're talking about writing about personal people, about people. That'd be weird to get that to Tim right?

You know?

Is it so long ago? No?

I can.

It's funny. I she was just sincere.

She said, I want to write a song called when you think Tim McGraw, And I thought, okay, I mean you know, if you don't cut it, nobody, nobody's gonna cut it. But okay, you want to write it. It's your song, these are your songs.

Let's just do it.

And I just didn't overthink it. And you know, that's that's what I did with her. I just didn't overthink it. I felt like she was writing her songs and I let her and that's why it worked between us.

And so I thought, God, that's so.

Nervy, you know, It's like okay, and then she, you know, sang it to Tim McGraw's Crazy.

I remember seeing that words show. I think we did sing it? Is that cool for you?

Yeah?

I was just so proud of her.

I was.

I was always like a proud momb with her, you know anything, you know, just because she always reinvented the wheel, as she still does.

Laurie McKenna talked about how Faith they'll put her on the map as a songwriter and why Tim McGraw song Humble and Kind was so special for her write. So this gets interested to Faith and she says, hey, I love your song, Like, how does that first conversation happen?

So what happened was I put out this record called Bittertown. And the reason I know these dates is rare because I never know dates. But my son David was born May tenth, two thousand and four, so I know.

It's two thousand and four.

And I put this record called Bitter Ten out and it had most of those songs on it, and Mary over the summer, I think at some point played it for Melanie Howard. Melanie called me like August and said, I want to pitch your songs around town?

Is that cool?

And I had been here once. I did a round at the Bluebird and it was probably like two years earlier, like two thousand and three maybe, and never listened to country music. I didn't grow up listening to country music. I didn't know much about it. And my husband and I came home and like a month after that first trip, I was like, hey, man, are you listening to the country radio station? And he's like, like it just like got us of us were like hooked from kind of that moment on and and she called She's like, you know, I'd love to picture songs around town, and I was like, that would be brilliant. I don't know what that means, you know, pitch away. And then by Thanksgiving. Faith had cut the songs, so I don't know. I think Faith the story I heard. By that point, Faith had cut a bunch of songs for that record.

That record came.

Out the following.

August, so Aboudy, you know, two thousand and five, and you know it was called Fireflies, and all you know, for those songs to be on there. It was the first song I heard, you know, coming out of Faith's mouth, was Fireflies. I went to Missy's house and she played you know, I sat down and she played it for me, and I didn't I was not emotionally prepared for what it did to me. It literally and looking back now that I kind of understand where I was at that point. You know, my husband, I had five kids, and I'm just like, still, I still do this. I'm doing little shows, making records, and you know, he's a plumber, he works for the gas company, and we get all these kids. And I swear when I heard her, I heard her saying fireflies, I just broke open. And it was really my first experience of of just like tears of joy, but it seems so sad like it looks sad I think on the on the surface, but it was just like this weight had been lifted off my shoulder, and I knew, like I could keep making music.

So you're making music and they hear your record a bit, Did you want to be an artist and move to town?

I didn't want.

I did have a record deal because that because because of faith, you know, I did end up making a record on Warner Brothers. But I kind of always knew that I wasn't probably going to move here. My kids were all school, you know, my husband's job, my family, I'm super tight with my family, and so I didn't think I would ever move here. And I knew I didn't want to be in the road the way you know. These artists they you know, you know, I mean, it is a hard life, and and I just, you know, I just didn't.

I knew I couldn't do that.

When when Tim and Fate did Soda Soul in two thousand and seven, I went out with them for about five weeks and I had three of the kids with me, and I loved that. You know, I knew I could do it in little, tiny little pockets, but I couldn't. I couldn't put in what these artists, you know, give every night to to to their to their art. You know. I just the songwriting part of it is like, I'll be doing that until you know, they peel me, peel the guitar away from me.

A lot of my friends will go right with you. They'll and they'll go up to near Boston where you live. They're like, I'm gonna go right with Laurie and so. And you just go to your house.

Yeah, we just sit in the basement.

What so, walk me through that. So you knock on the door and you answer, and we have a guitar on.

I wear a guitar.

You're already riding. Well, how does that work?

I have a g core playing as the door open.

No, yeah, we we you know, as long as you like children and guitars and dogs. Basically we have so many dogs right now. But we just sit in the basement and write. I don't write when I'm by myself. I don't write in the basement, but I have a little writing room in the basement.

What I found was people.

I think, if you write in Nashville every day and you're such a part of this community, which you know, I come once or twice a month, and I love it, love it.

Love it. Lowit.

But if you did, if I did that.

Every day, I think I would, you know, want to take a trip somewhere else and sit in a different room too.

But I think people up there playing up.

In my neck of the woods will come by, or if sometimes I'm really lucky and I'll just have some of that, will come up for two or three days and just you know, we write, literally, you know, write songs, panera bread, go to dinner, drop them off with the hotel next day, write songs.

It's like all we have. So it's like we just.

Write and write until they have to take a plane home.

Anytime that either my group or I do comedy, it's some we'll reopening. We'd go up into the Northeast, even to Boston a couple all right with Laurie, I'll see you tonight. Way back on the show, I was like, all right, good luck. That's awesome. And you know you talk about writing alone, which you and I think that maybe you've said this. Other people said, like you started like writing a little prayer, like like a loan in the kitchen. Is that what it is?

Started when the kids were little, I would just like pick while they were you know, putting them in to bed.

I would for years I sat.

It's kind of strange one to think about it.

I would just sit in their rooms. We the first the first.

House we lived in, the three oldest boys all slept in the same bedroom. It was just like there was It was a two bedroom house, but one of the bedrooms was really big, so all the boys were in there and I would just sit and play guitar until they all fell asleep. I don't know how they ever did it, to be honest and think about it. And then you know, it's like your life changes, like my pattern of writing changes for a while when they were all in school, like i'd have I had an easier time in the morning, like start off right after I dropped them off at school, and then sort of worked through the day. When I still do that sometimes my two youngest are homeschooling right now, so it's a little different, but humbling kind.

For example, it was like I just sat.

In the same chair from like eight in the morning until you know, probably ate at night and I just pick away. When I'm writing by myself, it's best for me to like work on it, like do a load of laundry, come.

Back, call it my husband's coming home. I sing it doom, you know.

And then make dinner and and my brain works kind of well that way.

I love your version of humbling kind love it so much.

Well, my granm made that song so much better.

He really did.

It's funny because he always credits me for the phrasing. And we did this talk together, the two of us, in front of an audience, and they played the work tape, which neither one of us had listened to in a long time, and he had just gotten through like saying, I just copied the work tape, and then we listened to it.

I'm looking at him like, no, you did it. I copy him now.

It's funny, But the version McGraw has is just my iPhone. It's just and I had just written it, and it takes me a minute sometimes to get phrasing and to singing to the song and to sort of like I actually changed the line. His version of the last line says, you know, when you get where you're going, don't forget turned back around. And by the time I got to it, I realized I couldn't fit all those words, so mine just says turn right back around. But it's small, little detail. But that's for a long time. When I wrote a song, I would even have to play it to an audience a lot before I really I don't know, it's before I really knew the song. Or sometimes it still happens where I'll play if it's a new song, I'll I have to play it for an audience and then sort of find out if I like it or not.

Sometimes you need to play it to them as if you like it.

Sometimes are you looking for the.

When when you're playing something for you to see if you like it.

I think it's like I actually, when I thought about this, like years ago, I think if I was to describe that, I would think, oh, I'd sort of be looking for their approval. And now I think what it is is, I'm just sort of looking for my comfort level in the song. Like it, am I comfortable singing every word of this song to these you know, in front of somebody versus just by yourself.

It's a very different thing.

So it takes me a little bit to wrap my head around them.

Sometimes with art, obviously impossible to predict any sort of success or failure. I think it's a beauty and art, yeah, you never know. Yeah, with humble and kind, and with Tim cutting it, did you feel like that there was something special to his version and what he was saying about the song, because again he comes to me before the record's even now and it's like, Bobby, this song's going to be massive. Did you feel like I could do that?

It's funny because I didn't know exactly that. I didn't know that he was going to cut it, to be honest, for a little bit. And it's funny because I think he had it for like a month and then I don't know if I saw him or I don't know exactly what happened, but he's like, yeah, I'm cuting that song. It's like, oh thanks, I didn't know, you know, nobody told me. And then once it was cut, he was going to make the video. And when the video came out, they sent me like a rough of the video, and I thought, what is going on?

Like, how how did he How can this possibly be the video?

You know, because it's so worldly and so that's you know, I always tease and say I should give him some some co writing credit on that song because he really sees it and brought it to a way different place than I. I still see it as such a simple little It's a very simple song. Every every line has to rhyme with kind It's like the easiest rhyme. It's a very simple form. You know, each verse ends in the same line. And I still see it as like this tiny little thing, you know, that that I wrote for the kids. And I do remember when I was writing it at one point questioning myself like, oh is this preachy? And then I thought, well, well, who cares if it's preachy. I'm writing it for five children, So if anybody thinks it's preachy, I'm just gonna say, well, I wasn't talking to you as my kids. But he just saw it in such a bigger way. And when the video, when they showed me the video, I was like, I don't know this is gonna work. Like there he's you know, this is a real far reach for the song, and he he just did it. It was amazing to me. It's amazing to me. What I really feel like, it's almost two different songs when we sing it.

Do you and are you able to see, as they would say, the force from the trees because you're so close to it. You wrote it, you've been in the process watching tim grow with it. But have you been able to see it affect like a mass amount of people as just a message?

Yeah?

But I mean that's the thing about music is and again that whole luck thing that I'm talking about. It's like, I feel like any sort of creativity probably people of all, like you.

Said, all kinds of art, all kinds of.

Art if you are if you keep yourself plugged into it and you like believe that you can do the work if it lands on you.

Hank Ty, the Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast. I sat down with Natalie Hemby back in twenty seventeen. Here she is talking about writing songs like White Liar and Automatic with Miranda Lambert and how she knew early on Miranda was going to be a big star till you try and you don't sign, and so you start writing songs. Did you just want to be a writer then, or was it like, Okay, that didn't work. I'm not going to pursue the artist part.

Of it, you know what.

I was devastated. I was very disappointed, and you know, I didn't know what but for some reason, I'm like a Tomex, I take a look in and keep chicken, but I got knocked down from it. But I basically I had a publishing deal. And then I met my husband and we became really good friends, and then literally got engaged and we got married, and we were like, let's move out to LA because I grew up here in Nashville and I loved Nashville, but I also hated it. I was like George Bailey in Bedford Falls, like this was my Bedford Falls. I wanted to leave here. I was like, I'm going to go places. I'm doing this with my life, damn it. I'm gonna have this huge record deal and I'm gonna be singing on all kinds of stuff. And it just never it just I always hit a wall. It never worked out for me. And so my husband and I we got married and literally about a month later. Who he is a producer as well, but a month later we came high tailing. No, we moved out to La lived out there for a few months and man, just like a month's Yeah, we didn't stay very long. We came high tailing to back home because La is so hard to live and especially if you don't have a lot of money.

It's expensive. People are very affected, yes, out there too, That's why it's hard for me growing up in the South. Yeah, and where people are people. Yeah, it's it's like you're walking into a plastic well.

You just feel like after all the people out that I've really loved from out there were either from LA or they were from the Midwest. But it was so funny because it was like I found myself either try It's like you either become LA or you get eaten up by LA, you know. And when I go somewhere, I found myself going, who's this and what do they do? And how can they help me? And I hate that more than anything.

Do you feel like that because I do a little bit now too, But don't you feel like that now a bit too because you're at the level you are? Or don't you kind of wonder why people nobody wants my friend, Like, really, if I don't have a job, cool job, nobody wants with my friend.

I don't think you want to be my friend either. Maybe they think I was funny or something, But I don't know, No, I don't know. There is a little bit of that, I think, you know, it just kind of comes with territory, but it's also a great way to set an example. I guess you know what I mean. So, but I definitely when you're out in LA. When I was out there at the time, I definitely felt like I just didn't like the person I was. And so we came home after a few months. For a few months.

I'm assuming you rented, Yes we did.

Yes, we did, and we started in a nice area, but it was like we didn't have any money. It was just not fun. So but on my last day there, I met with a publisher out there and with Sony Publishing, and I had a great meeting. And so I came home and I told her I was moving back. So her name was Kathleen Carrey and she's awesome. I came home, got a job at Comcast because we needed health insurance. Worked there for like two to three years. In the meantime, my husband gets this job to produce co produce with Frank Letdell. This girl Miranda Lambert who was third runner up on National.

Star New Artists from TV basically yeah, yeah, artists.

From TV also my ad.

That was another thing that was changing the formats as well, was TV, you know from American idol to I mean everything you can imagine, all the TV shows, So anyways, you almost had to be on a TV show during that time to get a record deal. I mean that's almost like what they were looking for. So he started working with Miranda and then they started all having and I mean literally Mike used to come home and play all these records. I mean he played, produced, engineered, mixed all like the first three records, and I just heard her music through the house all the time, and I would sing harmony. I sang harmony on all her records and stuff. But in the meantime, I'm still working at comcasts. And then I also then I also got a publishing deal with Sony in LA. Was like my last bid to try to be an artist, so I went out. I didn't go out to LA, but I was just writing for this project and they once again I was meeting with labels. I mean literally at twenty six. Someone told me they were like, well, she's kind of old to have a deal right now, which is hilarious to me, I mean, which it makes it just makes for a great story now. But at the time I was pissed. I was like, I'm not old. But anyways, none of that worked out.

But Mike was.

Doing so well and he was doing all this stuff with her and then David nell Elaang band, but he finally was like, hey, you should write with my wife. I mean, and she'd met me because I'd sang on her records and stuff, and I'd sang with her on a couple of live things too, and she was like, Nally, I want to write with you on this next record. And I was like, will you call me?

I don't want to bother you.

I'm like, I'm available, you just tell me when you have time. So she ended up calling me and finally, and literally we wrote eight songs in two days. And it's because I mean, I literally had all these ideas I've just been saving for and it was white liar, only prettier.

Let's talk about that. Let's let me stop you for a second. You know, just for those at home, you wrote eight songs in two days. Now, most writing sessions people put to, you know, four to five hours aside and go we're gonna write, yeah, and then you come up with the song and you get and hopefully you demo it and it's a thing. Yeah it is. And sometimes that friends who double rights. Yeah, no, right, and that's a lot like you do a double right with two songs? You're exhausted, you are? You did eight songs in two days? Yes, you know what.

Mariana at the time she lived in Texas and I only had her for a couple of days, and I was like, I'm like, I'm gonna drink coffee and I'm gonna write my brains out.

I don't care.

I'm like, I just wanted to get But the thing about it I liked about it was I really loved the songs. I had been working on the title White Liar for a while and I was trying to make it this dark, mysterious but with a White Liar. I was like, I didn't know where to go with it, and she goes, well, I don't know, Like what about like, hey, lie, Ruth comes out a.

Little out of time?

And I was like that like that literally and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, And I was like, we wrote it in thirty minutes.

Would that be the moment that you went, Okay, she's really special.

Yeah, I would say that would be. But I tell you what. On her first record, she wrote love is Looking for You Now by herself, and she also wrote care Saying by herself too, But I Love is looking for You Now? Is like, what an amazing song that was. If anybody could ever go back and listen to that, they need to. It was so and she wrote it when she was sixteen, and I was just like, damn, this girl is really good, Like she's I don't know, I really have always known that Mirandam's a great writer.

Would that be the first big check that you got, was white liar, Oh yeah, yeah, yes, the first mailbox money. We were like, holy crap, like I can actually not work at comcasts.

Absolutely, and honestly, it's probably the song that's made me the most money because usually your first hits are the ones that keep generating because that's what they always go back and play over and over and over again for years. So if you can have a first hit with an artist, that's a really great thing. And the great thing is her first hit as well, her first number one. You know, Kerosene. I totally thought Kerosene or gunpowdern Led all those should have been number one, but they just weren't at the time for whatever reason. But that was her first number one and my first number one, and it was really special to get to share that with her.

You know, I'm a big Jesse Alexander fan. She wrote The Climb by Miley Cyrus. She also wrote Lee Brice's I Drive Your Truck. She's written so many massive songs. But she shared the difference between writing in Nashville versus writing in Los Angeles and why Nashville is and was a better fit for her.

So I was writing at Disney at the time. I was in my probably first or second year there, and my publisherly Sir Ramsey, found out that they were coming here to make that Hannamontana the movie here in Nashville. And She's like, wait a minute, you gonna come here to Nashville, and you're not gonna use any of the Nashville songs and songwriters because at that time, all the Disney franchise stuff was basically written out of la So she like found the director Peter Chisholm and talked him into coming to our office in Nashville while they were scouting locations, and we literally put on like an old school picking like with guitars, like we just played songs that we loved, and he was taken by my voice, and you know, just we hit it off and he said, would you please just make me a CD and you know, put some songs on there. And I thought, oh my god, this is my moment and I didn't have anything. The song that we wrote was called It's the Climb. It was a guy song. John Mabe was singing it. It was a little more spiritual. But he called us like a week later, said, if you'll rewrite the song, I'm going to rewrite the whole movie around this song, and.

You'll rewrite the song. What does that mean if you're.

Because I had written it more if the headlines like these prayers are praying? You know, it was very much more spiritual. It was more adult. You got to remember Miley Cyrus was fifteen aunt of Time. So we did. We rewrote it and sent it back and he was like, you don't understand, like she's gonna be play She's gonna be writing this song in the movie, Like this is going to be part of the whole movie. But I still didn't believe him. I just thought, no, there's gonna be some la writer that's going to beat me. You know, I'd be into the song. Someone's going to write a better song.

Is that because so many times you get told something at the last.

Minute, yes, and we were by that point. I was so used to know that yes. I couldn't even understand that. And it was so odd to have something so much about my struggle be the thing that gives me success. Do you know what I'm saying? I like, how does that happen?

You know?

And it was just such a blessing just to watch my dreams come true. And now I get to see, you know, people on the American Idol sing it. I've seen you know, I've had letters from people that use that during chemo treatments or run a marathon. To my daughter sing it at our pre K graduation. You know, it's just it's like the song that people have taken so personal.

I love the song. I played it because I was on poprity at the time. I played all the time. Yeah, I had no idea you were influenced in my life, see even then. So did you go back and make it the original version your record?

I just kind of sang it the way we wrote it. This whole record that I made is really acoustic. People will come hear me play and they'll say gosh, I love your version of I drive your truck. It's so different coming from a female's perspective. So when I made this record, I wanted them to have a Bluebird experience, Like literally, I want them to walk away after just seeing me play the Bluebird and put it in and be like, that's exactly what I just heard. So the common denominator is me and a guitar, my husband and a gay guitar, and Richard Bennett was very sparse the way we recorded it. But on every song there's a special guest like Sheryl Crow sing's on it, Charlie Worsham, Will Hoague like I've got all my friends singing, kind of a special feature of the song. So I'll bring you on.

I just download it when you leave. I don't even have a display. I don't have a disc call you have a disc holl in your life. No, I don't have a disc holl either, No for any So I haven't give a bunch of CD lay around.

Oh yeah, people give me CDs all the time, Like, I don't know what to do with this.

What's the name of the record. I felt so ignorant.

Called down Home because me and brothers Osborn wrote a song on their record they recorded as well, but Christopherson's on there, and there's some really cool songs that I wrote for the record.

Man, look at you. I remember the first time meeting I was timoated to talk to you. I told you this. I was like, I'm such a big fan because I saw you play and then I knew what you'd written songwriter geek and you were really nice to meet and not nice is in nice. You were very friendly, you were very warm. There's a difference in nice and warm, and you were very warm to me. And I was like, man, people aren't warm to me because everybody's like either scared because they I'm gonna get on ready and say something about him, yeah, or they just don't like me because I said something about him.

Well, you might have said something about me.

No, if I did, it was awesome. I said, I want to hear. Okay, So let's Miley the Climb. That's that was my introduction to you.

That was the one.

What's the third clip of the mike over here? There's one of black whites? Okay, okay, we did that one. So I drive your truck, Lee Brice tru I mean that one w won everything. Yeah, I mean that's that's because I wonder what the Miley song inside of our little bubble here in Nashville, if that really made you like, whoa she's? Because I wouldn't think it would didn't.

It was very surreal because you know, I'm a Nashville songwriter. I grew I grew up, you know, want to write country songs like you stopped loving her today? That's my bar, you know. So you know, I'll be honest. I don't listen to a lot of pop radio. I wasn't influenced by pop radio, so it was so weird to have a number you know, one song on pop radio umber and fourteen weeks at number one on AC and all these formats that I didn't really listen to, and.

Other countries, to other countries like the thing.

It was so surreal. Yeah, and so you're right, like I thought it would open all these doors in Nashville, but really what happened was it was almost like all these A and R people and people that had been looking at me all these years, it was almost like they're like, oh, see, she should have been doing that, you know what I mean? It was it was and it really kind of messed with me too, like, well, maybe I should have been writing female songs all this time, Like maybe, you know, it was a head trip and it took two years. It was kind of this crash, you know. It was like this high having the song and then nothing else happened. And it was because that's not the kind of writer I am, you know, because they were Disney was like, you got to go to l write, you know, I got to write with some incredible LA writers. But I got out there, I was like, this isn't I'm a Nashville songwriter.

What's the difference. A lot of friends go out and there write in LA and they always come back and I'm like, and not for me, But what's the difference in an LA right in the Nashville right?

I think it's just the like craftsmanship, you know, I'm raised on hooks and you know, lyrics basically, I mean that's everything for me, a lyric and out there it's like, you know, you're bringing that to the party, but it's all happening so fast, the way they write so different. I'm very Sixteenth Avenue, you know, I grew up wanting to be Harlan Howard and those kind of writers. So I think they knew I was an imposter too.

You know, but they come here now because they want to get away from that environment.

Yeah.

You know.

I remember Alo Black coming to the studio and he said, I don't know if you know Alo at all. He said, you know, he's an R and B singer, and he was like, I came here because people really write songs here. Yeah, And I think, and I'm just paraphrasing him, he's like, in LA they just kind of turn out music. Yeah, in Nashville, they write songs.

We craft We were craftsmen. I mean, we were making the finest cabinet you can make of the finest shoes. Like we don't We're going deeper than the surface. And I respect pop music so much, like, you know, the way what they can do with the melodies and tracks and lyrics, but it's just, you know, I grew up on country music and certain kinds of songs, so that's my bar. And so what happened was I had to reinvent myself, believe it or not, after twenty ten, going into twenty eleven, after I'd had this huge song, I had to re change everything. And that's when you know, I was writing female songs. I wasn't get anything recorded, and I remember thinking, I've got to just start writing men's songs. It's really not that hard. I love men's songs. I grew up on men's songs, you know. So my first coming back to that was one of the first co writes of that year. It was Rodney Clausen and we wrote Drink on It, and that was I had to prove myself why I'm a girl being in a man's room.

Well, let's talk about this one for a second. So you're right, drink on It? And when do you know that one? Blake has put it on hold because it's a process. Put it on hold, then cut it. Then it's a single, like walk me through those steps.

Okay, this is a great story. Actually, you know, me and Blake Shelton have been friends for a long time, but he's very cryptic and mysterious when he's when he's going into cuts. So I didn't even know they cut it until two days after they cut it.

Wow.

Really yes, And you know believe actually me and Rodney, I mean we are We liked the song. We all you know, have vibbed and stuff. But it wasn't like that's a smash, you know. So we recorded it and then he recorded it and they put it, yeah, you're right hold, but it was still just like holds a hold. I mean, I'm sure you've heard that term. We say it all the time, like I get holds, you know, but cuts. It's a big leap between a hold and a cut. And so he records it, and then I was pregnant with our twins. He asked me to come sing on it because I sang on the demo and that was a really cool experience. And then the wait is am I going to get a single? Because in my world, if you don't have a single, then you know, it's really hard to make a living now with you know, a piracy and everything. So the day before I went in to deliver the twins, I get an email from Scott Hendricks, which is his producer and label head, and he said, just want you to go in knowing that you have the next Blake Shelton single. And so I have brand new babies and I had a song go number one for two weeks, one for each twin.

The Bobby Cast will be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Sarah Buxton talks about Keith Urban recording her song Stupid Boy and how it changed her life.

And it was treated differently on the record. We cut it with no click track, which is something you would never do if it was going.

To be a single.

So you had a little more freedom, yeah, to go your own way even in yeah, very small details, but you weren't right on with how exactly it's supposed to be right now.

I'll say Innocence is one that I feel like I was being more authentic too, like that's an actual story and it's like so, but yeah, I'm with you, like Stupid Boy was totally There's just these songs that are gifts. That's the kind of land and you don't really remember. I mean, I can tell you, like the beginning of how that song was written, but.

Well, I'm curious because you write it and then you put it on your record and then did it until Keith Nicole and we'll get to that story in second, until it was discovered and redone, like did it reach its peak? It it was just a song that you were proud of that existed and they kind of went away.

No, I I felt that it was really special, like when I for me, like I felt like it was special.

For me, and then and then he.

Heard it like I I it was just special to me.

I knew.

I knew the day that I wrote it. I was like, damn, I love this song. It was like a new a new thing for me.

How did he hear it?

Well, Betsy Cook was her name at the time. Now she has a different last name, and then her name became Betsy McHugh. But she was working for Borman Keith's manager at the time, and she's my age, really good friend of mine, and we were just meeting. She says that she played it for him on the bus. And then I've heard Dan say that he played it for Keith, so I'm not quite sure if we'd have to ask Keith how he heard it. But I heard that Betsy played it for him on the bus. And it wasn't like do you want to cut this song? It was like we I really want you to meet this girl, because you know.

It wasn't even about the song exactly. It was about the part.

Yeah, and that was the song she picked play, So it wasn't the ones they were thinking of as singles. It was like just the one that she thought Keith would like, well, imagine if I had approached everything that way.

But and the song probably that she thought best represented to you as a person. Yes, you have written a massive hit, right and it wasn't all of a sudden. And that's what's funny is you wrote it, you recorded it, you're proud of it, you love it. Yeah, then all of a sudden years later you have a massive hit right now, does that change people's perception of you as a songwriter in this town versus the artist? Only?

Oh, I was so lucky that that happened for the longevity of like my life and just the way that I'm happy where I'm at right now, and like that, I would never be right exactly where I was if that hadn't happened.

So, if I'm getting this right, you stayed and the stars aligned over you.

Oh, by, that's amazing. Look how we just did that.

I'm just all I'm doing iss And that that was the stars doing what they're supposed to do, exactly in the place that you're supposed to be living.

Right.

I was talking to Keith because Keith and I are friendly, we're more than just acquaintances. But we don't hang he's gone all the time, but we're friendly enough where we can actually have a good conversation about microphones. Yeah exactly, And so when we do have a microphone, he opens up a little more. I feel because he trust that I'm not going to take him somewhere he doesn't want to go. We were talking about maybe it was take you guess and take your for you doom You'll think of me maybe that one, but no, it was a fly whatever. One of his biggest songs are often the ones that weren't number ones. Yeah, like his career biggest songs, I think the songs that he is known for and Stupid Boys one of them, Yeah, weren't number one songs. I know that number one is a chart uh, it's a business plan by a record label. But that doesn't mean that these number two songs aren't heavier in people's hearts.

Yeah, right exactly.

I know number two is that is not funny ironic a bit.

Well, everybody was like, oh my god, like is it ever gonna happen? When I finally got a number one, they were like, oh my.

God, was it the fgl song without your first one Sundays?

To be honest, I don't know if it was that one or fix.

I don't know what I can tell you because I had the years.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

The question that I was going to ask you, it kind of leads into where we are now. I mean, I was thinking about it before you came over. And because you're wildly creative, do you ever go in and let's say, just for the sake of this, the name of the song is walking down the Street. Okay, you go in, you say, I want to do the song walking down the street. You guys write the song talk about one day you walk down the street and you ran into an old friend, and that old friend that song over, and that song really doesn't nothing happens with it, right, Maybe it's not that great. Maybe it's cut by the wrong person. If it gets cut, it off and you're like, well, I like that idea, but what we did therewith it wasn't right. So will you go into a room and go have the song about walking down the street another room, yes, another room with other people your same idea, but collaboration with people that you work in different ways with. Yeah, and then you present it to them an idea that you thought may have worked over here almost still the same idea to other people, and then it actually turned into something. Has that ever happened with you?

Oh god, yes, yeah.

It's a thing about taking a title back and taking a concept back. I think the way you have to do it is just trust that you've put enough kindness in the bank with people to be like, Okay, that song that we wrote that is doing nothing, that hasn't gotten cut and is just sitting there. I'm going to take that title and you tell them.

Oh, you have to tell them. I think you need to tell them because I would have called it bebopping down the street. My second version was not a change of.

Slices, another way to do it. I've definitely done that.

So but there are times where you've not been satisfied with the result of an idea for who it could have been your fault to totally as much as anyone else's, and you go, man, we just didn't hit it. I like, I want to use this idea though again, and you go to a different room with different people and work. But you will say, hey, room ay that I got to take it back. Are they usually receptive to that?

I mean most people are. I mean most people. I work with are I'm sure there's people that aren't.

But I feel like I have one good idea. I take it like thirty rooms, Yeah, same exact idea, and I just take it over and over it all I know I.

Took and I actually texted, and I'm kind of learning not to do this.

I think the lesson is don't do this.

But like I texted a friend and was like, I have a song I want to write with you.

It's called this and it's about without you.

Without you.

No no, no, no no.

But then I get it.

But then but then you know, I don't have anything scheduled with them, and then I'm actually tomorrow wanting to go in and and so I had to text my friend and go, I don't want you to think I'm cheating you, but I am taking that title back too, and he actually goes, oh, that's funny, because like, I just gave a title to so and so, and I think I'm going to take it back, and I was like, here's your chance.

What I like about what you said earlier is if you have enough kindness in the bank, yeah, the people will give you grace quicker, yeah, and probably fuller than if you don't.

I am learning that.

That is, if you're generally pretty kind to people, like treat people well, let them know how much you love them, like when you see them, really let them know that you can. There's just more you can trust how much people love you. You can really trust it.

And yeah, I'm not a big trust her, but I hear what you're saying. That's also why I'm going to therapy, Like have an hour.

You can trust it.

I am getting better.

Yeah, you can, you really can. I encourage you to. But that doesn't mean like you can just.

Go be don't worry.

I won't awful, but I'm generally not going to be awful to something generally.

But occasionally. This is Heather Morgan talking about writing Be to the Music and Lose My Mind with Brett Eldridge, which we're both number ones, and how she got her first number one with that song Beat to the Music. In this town. You're cool once things start to happen. Yeah, And once thing start to happen, people want to hang out with you. And then you're like, then I want to hang out because things are happening. We have people that you kind of struggled with. Yeah, you never have to worry about that.

It's so funny.

I mean though, I have this memory of walking down, walking down with these alleys on music grow because we couldn't, like the three of us couldn't get into a party, like nobody would let us in, and so we had to like we we just wanted to hang out at this old office building.

Then.

I'm pretty sure it was shocked to yoga.

Now, oh yeah, right there in the organization's I go there sometimes?

Okay, yeah, so you know exactly the alley I'm talking about.

But like we like, we didn't have any money.

I think Brett told the story at the Number one party for being the music that we all like pulled together like eight bucks and bought a bottle tequila and went to the empty publisher house and we were like, okay, we'll just hang out with each other. So I was like, yeah, I do remember that. I remember what I was.

Wearing when you came to town. Would you say it was five or so?

Yeah?

Who were the people that because everybody kind of has classes, Yeah, who came to town around the same time you came to town that you get to know still knew?

Well, I would say, I feel like my class kind of turned out to be like John Knight and then Ross of course, and then Nicole Gallian.

People that are still.

Nichole's got a really good one of these two. If you're listening to this, Nicholes was.

Really yeah, she was a great, great podcast just from early on. Those are the ones that I still like. See and then I met Jared a little bit later, but not too much later.

Jared Johnson, Yeah, yeah, see American Bang or kind of like three or he.

Was actually it was an American Bang when I met him. Yeah, And then I remember I just remember writing with him my first time to write with him, like amazing sunglasses on, he looks like he was a beatle kind of and then thinking like this guy, wow, he's like wait, how is how is this happening? Because he's so cool and IM girl from Texas And then we ended up hitting it off and we've been buddies ever since.

I just I love how like he'll say anything yea to your face.

Right we talked in here. They text me for like an hour calling me out on things right after were like I forgot to say this text yeah, but it's always I like consistent.

People, yes, and he is that for sure.

I know what to expect and I don't have to worry that you're pulling something over being a bad way. If I know, I can trust that you're going to always give me the same kind of person. Yeah, that's what I like about Jaron.

Yeah, like I can appreciate it.

That's always the beat of the music. Was like the song of the Year that was.

Very life changing.

That was so crazy because I remember the year before for the b and Ile wor Words, I wrote Jody Williams an email telling him like it was almost it probably.

Read like a school assignment.

I was like, dear Jody, this is why I would love to be included in the b and I Awards because I wasn't getting one, And I wrote him a list of why I thought it might be good for my career just to get to be there for that, and he like gave me an extra ticket. That those things are kind of hard to get into, so he was really kind and gave me an extra ticket. And then the next year was like the first year to get an award, and then we won Song of the Year. So he afterwards he was like, well, that email you sent me last year, He's like, you really want ADID this year. But my sister came with me for that, and yeah, it was really awesome. I just remember somebody was talking to me when they were like about to announce it, and somebody else from the table like hit me and they were like you need to be watching.

No, I didn't know.

They were like they were like, make sure you have family there, and I was like, I'll bring my sister, like she'll have fun.

She'll like you bring just and have family to have family, right, yeah, and if you lose someone that you're still.

Oh yeah, you're still totally. So it was those nights are so fun. But I remember like my hands wouldn't stop shaking. It was so weird, Like.

Yeah, it was like this, I mean like why is where are my hands doing that? That's so weird?

And did you get cooler around talent as far as we wanted to write with you? Oh God, Like did the calendar start to I feel.

Like people gave me a shot that maybe didn't beforehand. And yeah, I do feel like there was a shift. I don't know if I got cooler, I'm for sure, but I do feel like some more opportunities came along and it was just I think it was just nice. Somebody said something really cool to me. It was actually at a Christmas party at Jaron's house. It was this guy, Mark Beeson, who's an amazing writer, and he said, he said, your first hit song represents all the songs that you wrote before that. It's just like a culmination of all the work you fit in, all the risks taking you did, like all the times you showed up.

That's what it also means.

So he just wanted to make sure like I understood that angle on it, and it was I don't.

It was so cool to hear that.

Because you never know, like we wrote a beach song in January one year and it ended up being that so so yeah, it was really cool. But I did feel like, okay, like a big exhale moment, I'm the other cool thing. And I think that was fun that somebody described the moment as Matt Jenkins said this, Sorry Matt, I'm quoting you. Ben he said, it's like he was like, as a guy, it's like the first time you have to kiss a girl, you just like want to get it over with having a hit song.

He's like, now like I kiss the girl.

Basically that is what he said, and I don't take that out of that's gonna sound funky now.

That we'll quote you in the next one.

Great.

Let me ask you a question about this, because I remember talking about this on the radio show. So this is Brett and this is the normal, and this is so I don't even know what happened with this, did you?

Yeah?

Yeah, they're all on there. Yeah, they're all on there.

They didn't.

Luckily, they're like kind because they were like, what what It's a country song and so.

Many people have used that line. We were like the thousandth people.

But the success is that? What bred the Hey, oh wow, we need to get this song.

Well, it kind of happened in the room and I remember having that moment of like this was that on that or was it not? And then later we were at some event where Brett's team from Warner Brothers was there and they were like, Hey, we're working on the line from the song was leased my mind and I was like, Okay. Some NYU professor was like looking at it.

What on that line? They wanted to change it?

They wanted to change it or they wanted to figure out like how much of that of the song was I guess percentages or something, and so I was like, well.

That's those are the professionals, Like, we'll just leave it to that, hope. So they only they didn't get a lot of it.

It really like.

And the funny thing is there's two guys, So it's Celo Green in Danger Mouse and Danger Mouse, which so it's so cool meazing, it's a weird situation. And then the two other guys are actually two guys that Nonals Barkley borrowed from, so they're like the original people that created something. And then nonals Barkley borrowed from so ce Lo and Thang your Mouth borrowed from them.

Just that one part of it though, so well, I guess.

For the Narals Barkley song maybe somehow, so somehow, it's all there's like three different compositions, if you want to say, professionally, Like the other thing is like an Italian musical from the sixties.

I'm not kidding. Somebody came up to me at the Bluebird and they're like, do you know the history of your own song? And I was like, apparently not. I've nobody's ever shared that with me. So the two other guys have.

An Italian last name, and I don't even I don't know anything about them, but I do know that because it.

Was number one.

We got a we wont to Pop Award in London last year because of it. But just based on like the math of it, did that cost you a.

Lot of money? Haven't add all them.

Kind of because again, yeah, I mean not not as much as it could have been.

It could have been like really hurtful, but it ended up were I'm not like crying every time a check comes in because they have most of it or anything like that.

You know, it's weird. And in Nashville the writing for the most part is different than in Los Angeles.

Yeah, because they can get down.

If it's three people, it's thirty three thirty three.

Yeah, I don't know how they do that.

That makes me so like, that makes me nervous for people, because I don't know how you decide, like do you have to have like a class monitor that's like someone's like, no, you you have five words and he has seven.

So here's something you may not know about Nicole Gallion. She was actually on the second season of the Voice with ray Lynn. Nicole told us how a singing competition show kick started her songwriting career. It's tougher for women right now because stopped building the farm system first of all, when it was all dudes all the time. They stop even cultivating from the bottom of building females to even get to radio. So radio's kind of waiting on the minor leagues to give us these artists. But record it was just stop making females a priority. So here we are again, and radio is struggling to find these females to put on, and it's harder and harder to find them. And ballads are hard because everybody's so add and if something slow on the radio, like even research goes if something slow, boom, they change it because it's like a again, it's a female and it's a ballady song. If it had been a male, it would have been it had been a hit. Well, because it's such a good song and it's not even a dig at ray lns. Ray Link can sing her brains out, and she sings it wonderfully, and I just felt like it was such a good song. And I and I saw a couple weeks ago whenever they stopped promote, and I was like, oh, that sucks, because any other scenario, you give it to a dude, and that's probably man.

I've never even thought.

I guess I've just been so wrapped up and that is her, that's her story that I never thought of it as a song that from even a pitching standpoint of who could sing it and what would it be if someone else did it?

And to me it wasn't even a pitching thing. It was just that's so good. I think that people and I again, I'm on the radio, but I'm still so anti the establishment of radio that I think you have a lot of program directors that are like, well, it's slow and it's female. It's got two strikes against it already, so as soon as there's a bomb, we're gonna goea and pull out of it.

What's so crazy, though, is like those are the songs that, when they do get through, they are song of the year. They're the songs that our industry puts on a pedestal in such a highway. So it's it's like you got to swing for the fences occasionally, not like not every day am I gonna be willing to write. I'm not gonna write a hundred songs a year about divorce and ballads for girls, you know, but when the song presents itself, you owe it to the idea and you owe it to the artist and the to make it the best that it can be, even if it doesn't make sense for even if radio doesn't understand.

Well, I just want to say I love the song. I always loved the song. I loved it from the first time I heard. I was like, holy cow, that song speaks to people, you know, and I think a lot of people will understand it. And I just felt crappy for it whenever they quit on it. And it wasn't even their fault for quitting on it, because it was people wouldn't they weren't playing it and it two strikes again one strike and being a ballad, I think it would have made it.

I you know, I think that song like really helped show the evolution, you know, like as I said earlier, like the purposes of songs that helps rebrand her, you know, and show her evolve into something new, and hopefully that will just be, if nothing else, a gateway into who she is now.

You know, you wrote a lot with her on her last record, which is wild Horse, Wildhorse, Go for Memory. How many songs did you I had eight songs on there, So you guys just sat and wrote, did you write purposely to write a record with her?

No, it just happened, But it happen been like three or four years ago. It happened around the time that I told you, like Miranda started hearing songs I was writing. We wrote all those songs love Turn. All those songs are four years old. We wrote like probably eighty percent of her record, me and Jimmy Robins and Ray Like in probably a nine month period.

We just kind of had that.

There was like a season where we all just kind of clicked and I think it started to feel like an album to us then, But we didn't know that it would be three or four years before she would get a real shot and really get to put it out as it is.

And then we ended up co producing it.

I don't know if you know that, but I actually got to co produce the record, which when was the last time a female ever got to co produce anything. So I'm super proud of a lot of things beyond radio success with that project. For me, from my standpoint, how did you guys become friends? Because I was on the voice with her the same year. Really, Yeah, just what season was that?

Season two?

Okay, so that was early wow. Yeah, and it's so you're not a singer.

Around a minute ago I left out there's there are a lot of gaps in the story, which you know, which we've jumped around, but like if you heard it all chronologically, it would make sense. But you know, I had had a publishing deal for probably three four or five years at that point, wasn't having any success, and I kept getting feedback from like A and R at labels. When they'd pitch my songs, they'd be like, oh, that's an a cool song, that's an a cool song. And I was getting to be a better singer because I was singing every day and I had gotten the bravery to do it, you know, and I was recording in the like I got. I was so late to the game. All these girls grew up making demos in the studio when they're twelve, and I was like learning, at like twenty three how to do this. And so I was kind of like, well, screw it, I'm not getting nobody's cutting my songs. Maybe I'm supposed to make a record and because in it, but it was never like I want to perform, I want to sing. I just I want my songs out there. So I kind of was working with a manager for a minute, trying to get my house in order to approach labels, and then this manager sits me down like you're not an artist. You're never going to be an artist. You're going to be a successful songwriter, but you're not an artist. But through that process, people had started to brand me more as like a girl that wanted a record deal, and so I got referred to try out for the voice and.

As a ringer. Kind of bad friends that have been ringers on the show. I have a bunch of friends that have been like they recruit I say ring Yeah.

Well it was so early on it wasn't quite as strategic as it probably is now because it was so fresh the show that season was kind of just ending, and they were like, well, the show's blowing up, like would you want to do this? And it was the It was like the perfect time to get to do it, you know.

But I didn't make it very far. I didn't.

I was only on a couple episodes. But I had actually written with Ray this girl Rachel Woodward at the time. Two days before that audition, not the one that you see on TV, but like the audition to like to sing here in Nashville, like the preferred kind of thing. And I met her and I was like, are you in town this week? Because at the time, she's like sixteen? And I was like, are you in town by chance? Because you're trying out for the voice? And she's like no, And I was like, you have to do it.

You are made for TV.

Wait, so you convinced ray Lynn to try out for the voice?

And I met her before she was ray Lynn and told her to try it for the voice. We both ended up trying out and made it. And then I was kind of like like while we were on the show, she was a minor, and so like during production, like she always had to have a parent with her, and so like there would be days that like her mom flew out in the morning and then her dad didn't get there till the night. So production would call and say, hey, ray wants to go to the mall. We can't leave. Could she hang with you today? I was like her big sister slash mom, and so you know, and we just I don't know, I just to be honest, I think I was becoming like a mother. I think I was kind of getting the bug to be a mom myself. And she was like a little kid and so cuddly and just she just has this childlike thing about her. And I was like, took her under my wing and we just had this bond. So when we came back from filming the show before they had before it started air on TV, I knew that she was like a front runner, and I knew that Blake and Miranda had basically adopted her. And I was like, we need to write, Like you need to be writing right now because you need to have songs before you get a record deal, and when you walk in you need to have as much to say before they tell you what to say. So I was just writing with her, and that's where I was like, Hey, Natalie, I got this girl. So if you go back into my story, you take out the voice, everything's different from me. I'm not saying I wouldn't have found some success eventually, but the voice has nothing to do with songwriting, and it literally is one of the most crucial parts of my story.

It's still insane to.

Me because of Ray, because of Natalie, because of Moranda. That Domino all the way through.

Yeah, it means it very odd.

The voice was the Butterfly and your Butterfly effect.

It was when I came back from that show, everything started clicking, even outside of the stuff that we've talked about, Like I was like a different writer.

It is so weird.

Hang ty the Bobby Cast. We'll be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

This is Jesse Joe Dillon talking about finding out that Justin Bieber was going to be on the song ten thousand Hours with Dan and Shay, a song that she had written, and then how people treat her differently because of her dad's a very famous songwriter, Dean Dylon ten thousand hours, which is hours. You know, I know Dan and Shape rather well. We moved down about the same time. I have friends a long time, and you know that song by itself was going to be amazing. Anyway, Yes, when you heard that Bieber was going to get.

On it, I mean sometimes I still can't believe it, and the way that it happened is a memory I just never will forget. I was in New York with Alex, my publisher, doing a some kind of panel, Grammy panel maybe and Dan, I like posted something on my story and he responded to it and was like, Yo, are you in New York? I really want to see you today? And I was like, yeah, I'm with Alex. Let's all meet up. So we ended up going to this like sports bar and some guys were watching games or something, and then he was like, hey, we got to go back to my hotel. I want to play you something. I had no idea they'd even cut the song. I'm assuming at this point though, I'm like, oh, maybe they cut ten thousand hours, Oh.

My gosh, and yes, got it.

So we get to the hotel where I was standing in this room che Alex, Mike and Dan, and he's like, guess who's on ten thousand hours with us? And I was like who and he said Justin Bieber and it was like, shut up, that is ridiculous. I was like, for real, though, I want to hear it, and he was like no, he's really on the song, and I was like, I was a dude, no, blah blah blah. I did not believe him. And finally he just put headphones on my head and it already sounded so great from the top. I was like tearing up. And then when he started singing. I mean I just cried. I mean, there's like video of it wherever we're all freaking out, but it is like one of my favorite memories. I still can't believe it, really, I don't.

Think sometimes is that like a different ballpark financially when it goes pop?

Yes, for sure, and that song, Like Hardy even texted me when they were just in Australia and he was like, bro.

I'm in this coffee shop and they're playing ten thousand Hours. It's crazy just because it's like, actually I think it's New Zealand. It wasn't even.

Australia because it's been out a while now, and that's a difference. I think too that having someone like Justin on a song, it becomes so international where country I mean maybe some country stuff does that. I had never had country stuff that did that. But it definitely is different money wise. If you get on a pop chart.

Is there a song that obviously another artist is known for. They may have written with you, or you may have written it and then it got to them. But it's very personal to you, but it's just somebody else singing it, oh yeah, meaning it's about your thoughts not just because you're so close to it, because you wrote it how you're feeling. But I mean, it's like if you were singing a song and heavy, the song you would sing because it really represents who you are.

I think.

Actually a Brandy. You haven't heard it yet, but she we wrote a song just the two of us. That's she put out a month ago. Maybe it's called Buried. We wrote it last year, I think in the spring. Just at her, that is a song. It's hard for me to listen to that song because I had gone through a really brutal breakup. Is completely gutting to me, and it's still hard for me to She sounds amazing. I mean, the way they recorded her vocals even was a really cool thing that Brandy Carlile did. But it's that one's really hard because it feels so personal.

That it makes me. I don't know that one's hard. What do you do you do?

The song right rounds?

I don't.

I'm kind of like, I'm kind of shy, and I even coming in here today, I was nervous, to be honest.

Now though, yes, yeah I'm super warm, right.

Yeah you are, like yeah, yeah, yes you are. But I get I get a rash. I might even have it right now when I get hot or nervous. I remember when I was trying to get a publishing deal back when I was like twenty one, I had. I was sitting across from frank Lydell playing songs on my guitar and I went into the bathroom and it was so bad, Like I was like, he probably didn't hear anything.

I just did.

He watched this rash crawl up me like.

I'm the fucking walking dead or something like she So, I hate the long story.

Short rounds kind of scared you.

But because I've never seen you play around and now that I go to many of them now, but I've been a few, and I've played in a you. I do some of my comedy stuff, yes, but I never played with you or seen you play one.

I know, maybe I need to make myself to Chase actually texted me the other day about doing private stuff and he was like, dude, like, come on, let's just go do it together like.

Jesse and Jr. And we make money whatever, and it's really good to get over.

I know.

That's what he said.

You have big songs. You have really big songs and a lot of them. It's really good, easy money. Hard to get those offers, right, it's really.

If that's what he I know. And have you ever taken beta blockers?

No, you probably have thought about it. Me too for golf though, because I.

Can you get too Dutch, that's your nerve wracking.

Like I can walk out on stage do a bunch of new comedy for two thousand people. I know some of us gonna bomb. That's okay. I'm not nervous. I can do radio, be on live TV, whatever, all good because I've playne it and I've failed some many times. I know the worst case is going to happen. I can get through it, no big deal. I like, if I'm playing golf, yeah, it sucks because I'm like, I'm shaky as crap. Yes, so I've thought about that. Are you thinking about taking one for oh?

For that, I've thought about it because it's it's not like Xanax, right, No, we were messes you up, okay, because I saw it literally on the Kardashians or something I think where they were like just take a Bana blocker, and I was like, what is that? And then I looked into it and now I'm like maybe I can do that to play more so I don't.

Get a rash or just go xanax fulls had full, drink.

Some whiskey, A good scene. Yeah, I'll be like my dad in the eighties.

I saw a TikTok of your dad. It was so funny. By the way, I was talking about on the show like two weeks ago, where he was talking about he does a whole lead in about it he hates funny songs, and then he goes out property. Yeah, so so funny, such a funny He's up there just you know, singing, playing and then he's like, I hate funny songs, and George Strait called and and then here, well this a song paying me a lot of money, so I'm doing And so I just thought it was so fun growing up in a house where your dad that's I mean, he celebrated for it. Not only does he do it, but he celebrated for it. Did you always know that's what you wanted to do?

I think yes, but I didn't want to want to do it.

Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, Derek Wells, I don't know. You probably know Derek guitar player. He amazing guitar playary. He and I talked about it a lot, because we had a similar upbringing that way, with his mom being a great singer, his dad and step jobbing great guitar players. But I tried so hard to not want to write, and eventually I just I actually moved to California for a year after high school just to get away from where I was from, really and like to run from it. At yes, and I was working and I met this lady that Kathleen Carry. She was at Sony ATV at the time, and I would I would go play her songs. And finally one day and I had not talked to my dad about it at all, like I don't think i'd played him any thing I'd done at all at that point. And one day I was in their meeting with her and she was looked at me and was like, go home. I was like, dang, emilin, that's me. Like about I was thinking, like she'd like a song or something, and she's like, no, I mean you write country songs and you're good at it. I don't care who your dad is, I don't care which complexes. Go try and figure it out. And so then I tried to do that.

I guess I didn't think about the complex part of it because that's heavy.

Oh yeah, it's still I mean, there's still sometimes that I don't know, it's weird. I think I'll think about being like Sean Lennon or someone like that.

Jacob Dylan.

I don't even know what you do with that.

I really don't, you know, because I'm old enough now where it's not really it's not really that.

I'm so proud of my dad and I don't even think about your dad when I think about you. That's so nice, and I don't know that I would have gotten over to him. But you mentioned your dad in the eighties. I was like, oh, yeah, I just watch a TikTok by him. Yes, So that put me there. But I don't think. I don't. I don't. I don't know that I would or would, but I don't. I don't think about you and that being your dad when I think about you. I don't know if that matters to you.

It matters a lot to me, especially coming from me, you know what I mean, it does matter.

I don't know it. To me, I know it, but I don't associate those two.

I think it would matter to him even too, because he I know he always was like, you've got to stop.

But when I was really young, because.

I had people be shitty to me for what reason for being like his kid and I really went existing.

Well just that they it was either the attitude of.

She's probably not going to be good, she's only doing this because god he's and I went out of my way to not have my dad be affiliated with me trying to get a deal or anything. I just kind of tried. I was so conscious of him and what other people would think that, so that was hurtful. And then I will never forget I had to write with a guy I had idolized most of my life early on in getting a deal, and he was such a dick to me, and I couldn't figure out during the first part of the rite what was going on. And then he started saying things about my dad and I was saying, Oh, he has weird beef with my dad, so I guess he's going to take it out on me. And it was just such a bummer of like the dometer Heroes kind of moment. I'll still have things certain times, not often, but I'll think with some of the older cats who are like a lot of the people I respect the most that I'll think. I wonder if this has something to do with my dad versus me.

I don't know.

Emily wise Band is a Grammy winning writer on Hillary Scott's I Will, and she also crossed over into the pop world by writing a song for a Camilla Caveo. Here's a clip of Emily talking about getting super vulnerable writing the song consequences. If I were to make a top three or four and it's tough, he's unreal, but it's Shay from Dan and Shay. Lauren would be up there. Danielle would be up there and like someone that make Stableton can really sing, but his is so distinct and that makes him one of But I would guess pure vocalists like who do you? Who am I missing? I would put Danielle, Shay and Lauren up there.

Yeah, I mean, I think the cool thing about country music is that everybody. I love artists. When you can listen to them and you're like, whether they have runs for days or not, it's like, oh and that's so and so, like you can tell just about it.

Best vocalists, best vocalist, pure vocal Carrie say Carrie, I mean Carry's like alien, I say with Carry once and I was like, what, this is not even real?

Well, yes, she's so amazing, But I personally am a fan of people who have like cool voices, Like I love ray Lynn's voice.

I think it's like a cool voice. But you didn't give me a chance to pick cool voices. I just said, best pure vocalist.

Yeah, best pure vocalists I think are cool.

Difficult things gonna go no.

I mean, Shaye's incredible, Danielle is incredible. I love writing with Danielle. I loved writing with Lauren so much because if you thought it, she could sing it.

You know what I mean.

So it was like, you wrote next boyfriend with Lauren?

Yeah?

Right, what's it like? And I wrote a kid song with Lauren on my kids record. Yeah, and I because and I had to sing. And I'm not a good singer. I'm an I can sing funny that that's about it. But Lauren would sing and she'd write and she would see she'd do I was like, Lauren, I can't do that. You got to write back into where I can sing because she was so good just even writing. Yeah, Lauren's so good. What was my point was? I going with this. You remember I felt like I had something good to say? Always pretty good? Uh, Kamila Cobeoh you wrote Consequences?

I did? Yeah?

Would you write that.

It's a bonus?

I wrote with a bonus, It's like your word.

Yeah.

But like, I just love what I do so much. I'm really not shitting you, Like I really just like me too.

I love what I do, right, I love it. But I should get paid too, because I'm creating something that people buy and you do.

And it's great.

But I get so paid for that song.

I mean I wrote it with Nicole Yay and and Amy.

Watch who's Amy you wrote? How do on Amy? Watch what else?

Amy wrote? Thinking out Loud by Ed Sheer, And she's like this dope lady. She's got like covered in tats, like short, cool hair, a couple kids, like super chill. It was really really cool.

Reminds me of like Laura Velts.

Yeah, she definitely has like a British Laura Velt's vibe.

How do you get it involved in a write like this kind of out of this Nashville world?

Oh?

I guess you drip and fall into it. I I don't know how we got hooked up with Amy. I write with Nicole a lot. I love writing the Nicoles. She's one of my faves.

And so.

My sister probably is pretty good at making me the shittiest writer in the room.

And your sister because actually works with you or she does.

Yeah, she manages me and she is the veep of my publishing company that I'm signed to you. So it's just so cool having something like that in my corner all the time. But yeah, I got setups right and Amy and I almost didn't go that day, honestly because I'm like, tell all, queen, I'll tell anybody anything. You can ask me my deepest, stark as secret, and I would probably tell you right now. But I just some stuff had gone down the day before we wrote that. I just have you ever been in a blind rage?

No?

Well, I wasn't a blind rage. It was like a blind shame. I was really ashamed of some stuff that I have app that I had happened the day before, And so I almost didn't want to go because I knew my big fat mouth the second I opened it, I would tell them everything, and I was like, this one thing I'm not telling anybody. So I remember I went in at like noon or one. It was like an afternoon, right, and I had never met Amy, and neither I had Nicole.

And we go in and.

They started talking to each other like Hi, nice to meet you, blah blah blah. So I have this one idea and they're going through it and I'm just sitting there. I remember staring at these piano keys, like there's no way in hell I can stay here, Like I can't write today, this is not gonna happen. I'm like praying to God to get me out there, like the power go out or something. I'm like about to text my sister to tell her, like to call me in thirty and like she's stranding on the side of the road. I gotta go get her. And I just start praying. I'm like, God, get me out of here. I can't tell these girls, like what's going on with me? And I just heard these three words in my head and like I'm not a hippitye depity person, but like I definitely they definitely weren't me. And I do believe in something bigger than me happening all the time. So I just heard these three words and it was be a writer, and I thought freaking shit because now I have to tell them, because that's what being a writer is, you know. It's like sacrificing your pride and your privacy to like say what other people can't. And I'm a total like my shame isn't my shame, it's like everybody's shame. And I just kind of live that way, like with everything, you know.

So I was like, guys, I gonna tell you something, and I'm like sobbing my eyes out.

Amy probably thought I was a freaking nuts. Nicole's just like it's okay. And I tell them, and I'm like, I have this idea, but like we don't have to write it, like don't write it out of pity, Like I don't want this to be a pity, right, But I have this idea of consequences. It'd be like loving you at consequences whatever. And they're like, okay. We wrote the song in like forty five minutes and then we voice mombed it and I didn't think twice about it. And then at the time, I was dating another writer in town, Josh Kerr, So I was like, hey, babe, will you do this demo for me? Just piana vocal real quick, and he said sure, So I did it. I sent it to Amy and she called us like a week later and said, hey, I hope you don't. I hope y'all don't mind. But I sent this song to Ed Sheeran and I was like, no, I'm pissed at you, and she said he loves it, but thanks. His friend Camilla would die over it, and like, do you mind if he sends it to her?

And is this poor Camilla's record before she kind of known as the solo artist.

I don't even know if Fifth Harmony had broken up yet, like we were. I was like, okay, cool, Like I knew about Fifth Harmony, but I didn't. I wasn't like super clued in to Camilla necessarily so.

Or Camilla.

I probably just butchered that, but yeah, she ended up like recording it and actually the piano that you hear on the cut is Josh's piano from the demo. And it was funny because the first email we ever goot about it was like, Yo, this is going to be single and really that okay, that's.

What everybody said about everything, That's.

What I know.

We were like yeah, sure, and then for it to actually be single, it was really like a cool God moment for me because I was like, there's no way that should have happened.

So I'm like, thanks, thanks for listening to the special episode of The Bobbycast. Hope you enjoyed hearing stories from some of the greatest email songwriters and now Ashville Go follow on Instagram, enjoy their music. It takes a special kind of person to be able to sit down and crank out amazing songs like that, and you can tell just by hearing them in those interviews they are super passionate about writing. Maybe you're inspired to write a song now. You never know until you try. Be sure to subscribe to the Bobbycast wherever you're listening to this and rate at five stars if you don't mind. Thank you very much. We're back next week with another episode.

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