Esther Rose Presents American Songwriter’s May / June Issue as Guest Editor

Growing up, we were the weird hippy family in a small conservative Michigan town. There were so few residents that our population count didn’t even qualify us as a town. Village was the appropriate word. In other ways, mine was a generic “outsider” childhood; I had a bully and occasionally ate my lunch in the restroom. Out of 777 people, I couldn’t find mine. I did not stay in contact with anyone from school, but I have a divine and spiritual connection with the female country singers from the 1990s who soundtracked my adolescence. Can anyone else relate? Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?

In an interview recently, a very kind gentleman asked me what I think about “all these great new female voices in Americana.” For me, country music has always been women-powered. 

Give me an opening statement that explodes me open, like Jo Dee Messina’s:

Somebody’s gonna give you a lesson in leaving.

Or Waxahatchee’s plea: That’s what I wanted.

Or Lana Del Rey’s prayer: That’s how the light gets in. 

I’m in conversation with these women. The Chicks warned me long ago that I was ready to run. Many years and zip codes later, I answered: you know there’s no place safe to run. I watched my big sister put on mascara before school and endure her first heartbreak before I even had my first kiss. Don’t make me cry, I’ve got my make-up on. Joni Mitchell showed me how to write my way through loss by confiding in a friend. Amelia, it was a false alarm. Most importantly, Joni taught me to embrace being an outsider, which is the key to being an artist. I slept on strange pillows of my wanderlust.

My best friend Julia Sanders and I have developed a rulebook for nurturing each other’s songwriting. 

Rule No. 1. Songwriting is a calling, not just a career. First, you must answer the phone.

Rule No. 2. Finish the song and send it over before deciding if it’s good or not. 

Rule No. 3. After receiving a voice memo, always call (never text) with feedback.

Rule No. 4. Kismet forever.

I didn’t want to write an essay about ’90s nostalgia. I want to write about relevancy and staying power. Can something be considered nostalgic if it never went away? The way that vinyl has stayed in thrift stores for decades, only for another midwestern teen to discover Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. The whipped cream woman on the cover. Someone told me that vinyl officially outsold CDs for the first time in history last year. What was considered nostalgic is now solidly and financially relevant. There is nothing nostalgic about a masterful album cover or a scream-along chorus that makes you feel as though maybe you did have a happy childhood after all.

-Esther Rose

Photo by Brandon Sonder