“When Ashley played, people teared up.” - @joannastern , The Wall Street Journal
Joanna is the senior personal tech columnist at the WSJ. She invited me up to the stage during her commencement speech at @unioncollege regarding AI and the future to share my music. It was a deep moment for me of strange synchronicity and an honor that my work was used as evidence of what AI cannot achieve.
I wrote the song my senior year of college sitting tearfully at my desk in Schenectady, New York when I was 21 and heading out into the unknown. I wasn’t afraid of the future, I was afraid of losing my past. The people I loved. The memories. The songs we sang. I dreamt about putting them all in my pocket to keep and carry with me. That song was how I did it. I never imagined all these years later I’d be singing it for the thousands of other students who, I imagine, were contending with the same grief.
More than ever we are being called to do things with spirit and from our hearts. We are living through great uncertainty. If there is anything I know, I know this. We must continue to pour from the deepest wells of ourselves. Our humanness. Our cleverness. Our creativity. Our capacity to empathize and love. To feel tenderness, hope, resilience, and courage. Do all things through those vessels and the road will get wider for you.
I started playing guitar when I was 11 years old. My dad was the lead singer in a folk rock band. He played rhythm on a little triple 018 (which sits in my living room now. Thanks to @adamspickoftheday who so lovingly restored it.) The band were weekend warriors. Husbands and fathers married as much to the mountains as they were their families. I grew up watching him. His thick, muscular hands taming the unknowable neck of the guitar into beautiful, haunting melodies. I would sit on the floor in front of him while he sang and knew I wanted to be just like him. He was with me, but I could see it in his eyes he was somewhere else too. I was determined. I was going to go there. He showed me an E minor, and when my hands got big enough, he showed me the rest of them. I’ve spent over half my life with a guitar in my hands, working through my joy and sorrow. Tending to the questions, the hurt, the love. My happiest hours have been spent like this. And I feel that, because of music, I’ve never known a day of loneliness in my life. I looked down today, after singing a song I wrote about a dear friend who died last year and I saw my tears, and the little hole I’ve strummed into my fg75 and I thought about how we spend our lives. What we do with the days that have been parceled out for us. I have some regrets. Some things I would go back and do differently. But not in one of them did I have a guitar in my hands.
Amarillo, so good to see you. Thank you @highplainspublicradio and @npr for all your support 🖤I’ll be singing tonight at 7 pm at Old Tascosa Brewing Company brought to you by our friends at HPPR
HEART LIKE YOU IS OUT TODAY đź–¤
When I was sixteen and needed to get away from the world, I’d drive the backroads of my hometown listening to Being There. I’d launch myself over the hills like I was preparing for orbit. Music as loud as the speakers would go. Windows down. Me and the sting of blue sky.
I remember the sun beating down on my arm. The feeling of freedom, not quite mine yet, but dangerously close. I remember the pulse of that music. That loose, rootsy groove that would become the heartbeat of the stories I’d go on to tell.
Today, my first single is out in the world. And somehow, by some strange miracle I still don’t fully understand, it found its way to a purple studio in East Nashville, and into the hands of the man who played on that record.
Ken and I spent many moons planning what we envisioned. Sitting on his porch, or in his music room, quibbling, laughing, crying over life and music and time.
The morning we were supposed to cut Heart Like You, Ken took me outside with a worried look on his face.
“Let’s play it slow.”
I could tell he was preparing for a dogfight. I had written the song uptempo, and I have been known to share my opinion in the studio.
“Think of the lyrics,” he said.
I told him I liked the juxtaposition.
“You’re hiding the truth. You’re sad. It’s okay to be sad.”
I wanted him to be wrong, but I felt myself soften. I nodded.
We went back inside, and I let him be the heartbeat.
Ken sat down at the drum kit. He set the pace. I strummed the song slower than I ever had before.
By the end of it, tears were rolling down my face.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to be brave, to be good, to be of service. This time, the people around me weren’t asking for that. They just wanted the truth.
What a thing it is to be seen. To be heard. To be witnessed.
Thank you for letting me do just that. Thank you to the listeners. Thank you to everyone who worked on this record. Thank you to Josh. My absolute better half. Thank you to the radio stations who’ve picked it up. I couldn’t do this without you.
My new song Heart like You is out Tuesday 4/28 and I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been dreaming and bleeding for and building 🖤 link in bio to presave. Thank you KCFE in Texas and FROGGY 105.3 in New York for playing it already in a sneak peek for listeners. A special thank you to @gabe.masterson for engineering @ken.coomer for percussion and brilliant production Ron Gomez on bass
Tomorrow (4/21) tune in to FROGGY 105.3 in New York (or tune in online) at the noon hour to hear my interview with Lee Richey talking about my new single, Heart Like You đź–¤
