Play it Again

There is something about driving down familiar streets in your parent’s car with the window down and your hometown station on the radio. I’m nostalgic by nature, but that’s really my favorite way to experience it. I ran over to a relative’s for a family dinner the other night and managed to hear Jake Owen’s “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” both directions, and I smiled thinking about the time I built a couple hundred promo discs of that single to help out the A&R and Promotion departments. I remember reading the lyrics and thinking, god this song better sound great because it reads terribly. I plopped a disc in and was a little horrified to admit that I actually really loved it. I may hate the idea of tailgate songs, but some of them pleasantly surprise and stick with me.

Today I got in the car and “Play it Again” came on. Generally speaking, as soon as I can tell it is Luke Bryan I change the channel, regardless of the medium. Something about this song hooked me at the very first listen, and just like the requisite girl on the tailgate, I wanted to play it again, play it again. I instinctively knew it was an Ashley Gorley song. Ashley has over 300 cuts, 55 number ones, and a very distinct ability to stab you in the nostalgic heart. He’s one of the most talented songwriters of this generation, and I’m a HUGE fan. Give this playlist of his songs a listen and you’ll know what I’m talking about. 9 out of 10 times, if a song made me stop and think, feel, or dream, it was written by Ashley Gorley.

He was my music publishing teacher at Belmont in 2005. “Don’t Forget to Remember Me” was climbing the charts, and a few short weeks after the class ended, he had his very first number one. Fun fact, it was co-written by the future Mrs. Chris Stapleton and former Mr. Patty Loveless (Morgane Hayes Stapleton & Chris Lovelace.)

In 2008, I was working for a management company and my office was in Ashley’s publisher’s building. We saw each other often, and he regularly told me that I wasn’t supposed to be at a label or management, I loved songs like a true song champion and I was supposed to be in music publishing. I’m stubborn as a mule, and I emphatically defended that I came to town to help make artists dreams come true, nothing would sway me. One day, he knocked on my office door and asked for a favor. He had just written two wedding themed love songs, but they were too similar to pitch simultaneously. He asked me to put together a quick focus group in the office to decide which should go first. We each had to argue our reasons, and you know I love me a musical debate. My vote, “Then,” became a #1 for Brad Paisley in 2009. I started working at Sony in early 2010, and I left in November of 2016, but I’ll never forget sitting in the conference room that last September to preview a new single we were about to rush out for Brad Paisley. Imagine my surprise when it was the second song from that focus group almost a decade prior. Ashley answered my text confirming that “Today”was that second song before the second chorus even ended. I left that meeting with a huge grin on my exhausted and burnt out face.

Towards the end of my tenure in the music business, I was fully ready to admit that Ashley was probably right. My love for songs probably would have served me better a little further north on Music Row, but by that time, I was just too tired to shift gears and keep riding on the same road. I left Austin in 2003 to try to make a difference in the music business, and I left it in 2016 when I decided that what I really needed was a life not a dream. I fell into an incredible “music business adjacent” gig that kept me on the road with my favorite people, having a marvelous time all over the world. It wasn’t my passion, but it was productive and very fun. When I found myself unemployed and unhappy mid-pandemic, I had no earthly idea what would possibly light a fire as bright inside of me as music, but I was brave enough to leave and take some time to really figure it out. One year ago this week, I signed the paperwork to lease out my house and start this crazy full-time travel adventure of mine. I've learned to work to live rather than live to work, I have traded my rigid needs for control and intense planning for a life full of pivots and impromptu plans. I know I won’t be living this gypsy life forever, but I refuse to end it before I do a world tour. I’m still exploring ideas and options that will really make me happy long term, and while I don’t quite have it figured out, I’m proud of the progress. Music is fun again. I get excited instead of sad when I turn on the radio. I’m thrilled to discover new music and not care if it is commercially viable. It feels good to be back to bliss when something really speaks to me rather than doing chart math and playing politics. Worrying about the business sucks the fun out of the music.

Something about coming home makes me reflect on my past and present, and evaluate whether or not I’m on the right path. These days, I’m regularly reminded that I’m doing exactly what I want and need to do. That wasn’t the case 5-10 years ago. A friend did a livestream the other day and I dropped in a name for a series and some branding direction in the chat. He paused the show to exclaim that he should have thought of that and it was brilliant, and he was going to do it. I laughed and thought, it’s like I did this professionally or something. He kindly told his fans to check out my blog and gushed about the road I’m currently on and when our paths crossed several record deals ago. I blushed and enjoyed the rest of the show. It ended and I actually asked myself if I had any regrets about walking away, and questioned whether or not it was something I should go back to. The answer is a resounding no, on the regret and on going back. Sure I miss a few things about that old life, but I’m positive that shoe wouldn’t fit anymore if I gave it another shot. As much as I loved it, I don’t think the secret to my happiness lives behind those doors.

I REALLY listened to Play it Again this morning when it came on KVET, and my heart filled with the same sense of happy nostalgia I felt the very first time I heard it. Songs dig deep and really speak to people, even bro-country stuff I usually avoid. They soundtrack our lives, and are deeply ingrained in moments and memories. They take us right back to a specific time or place. I distinctly remember elementary school me sitting at my dad’s boom box in the basement, listening to Bob Kingsley’s and/or Casey Kasem’s Weekly Top 40s just so I could slam down those buttons and record my favorite songs off the radio. They’re both gone now, and so is the need to do that. It makes me vomit that Gen Z/Alpha refers to us as “people born in the 1900s” instead of our specific decades, but they only know a world of instant gratification. You want to play it again? Play it again. They aren’t waiting to hear it on the countdown, or trying to rewind a tape to just the right spot. YouTube and Spotify don’t fail them. But they also don’t get to experience that magical serendipity when the song you want appears just when you need it. That’s great for them, but I am grateful for guys like Ashley that can capture that feeling, and terrestrial radio for flooding my speakers with it whenever I don’t even know I need it. And in his honor, I will proudly blog about a Luke Bryan single, and the feelings it gave me today.

Just as a side note, while we’re talking about Ashley Gorley, Jake Owen’s Barefoot Blue Jean Night, and nostalgia... Ashley had an incredible cut on that record. It was never a single, but Jake usually includes it in his set. It’s one of my favorites of either of their catalogs. The piano intro is so quintessentially Ashley, and it makes my heart soar before the verse even starts. In high school, I loved nothing more than a stop at Sonic for a drink, a couple burned mixed cds of my favorite songs, and hours on the road with the windows down and someone I loved in the other seat. Give Heaven a spin, and you’ll be right there with me. And if you’re still chasing that music dream and you don’t remember that Play it Again feeling, You Should Probably Leave, which just happened to become Ashley’s newest #1 hit, about a decade after they wrote it. ;)

Cheers,

L