Music has been a passion of Frances Litterski for almost her entire life. Litterski remembers writing her first song when she was still in elementary school. Now the winner of Wide Open Country’s 2025 Song Contest, with “Liquor Store,” Litterski reveals how her childhood dreams are already coming true.
“I actually started writing instrumental piano songs first,” Litterski tells Wide Open Country. “I started taking piano lessons in kindergarten, and would start re-writing some of the songs in my piano books. I was lucky to have piano teachers who noticed my love of writing and really fostered it.”
“The first song that I ever wrote with lyrics was called ‘Girl Like Me” and I think it was pretty cringy,” she adds with a laugh. Although a child, Litterski still recalls what the song was about, an early indication of her creative talents.
“It was about dreaming big,” the Cincinnati Ohio native, who now calls Nashville home, remembers. “I wrote a lot of poetry as a kid, and I grew up playing piano, so it was around that time that I started to put the two together. After that first song, I just never really stopped.”
Litterski was already penning songs, and finding her own solace in putting her thoughts on paper, when she had the idea for “Liquor Store.” She wrote the song with Davis Forney. It was Litterski’s idea for the song, which she had while actually being at a liquor store, and realizing the amazing mix of people that were all congregated in the same place, albeit for likely entirely different reasons.
“I was actually walking into a liquor store one evening to get a six-pack of beer,” Litterski says. “I was heading to a friend’s apartment for a girl hang, and I remember seeing a few people there – one person picking out margarita mix and another person with a handle of vodka who was definitely not having the best day. It made me think about how many different reasons there were to drink and to be buying alcohol. I had part of the chorus written when I walked into my writing session with Davis Forney. He was immediately down to write it.”
“Liquor Store” says in part, “Some are celebrating, and some are barely hanging on / Some are there to make some memories, some are there to make those memories get gone / We’ve all been there before / We’ve all got different reasons why we’re walking through the same door / Of the liquor store.” Perhaps surprisingly, it was Litterski and Forney’s first writing session together. It’s a date forever etched in her mind now.
“We’d never met before,” Litterski recounts. “It was September 30th of last year and we got together around 10:00 a.m. I had the start of the chorus and concept, and we actually only finished the first verse and chorus that day. We didn’t want to rush it because it felt special. We ended up grabbing another date for a few weeks later to write the second verse and bridge. Davis actually called me as he was driving home from that first session with the idea of the narrator of the song being someone sitting out in the parking lot who was struggling with alcohol addiction. That bridge felt really special when we finished it. My favorite line in the song is ‘Trying to talk myself out of taking 12 steps back.’ It just puts the song in a whole new perspective.
Litterski already has big dreams for the poignant song, dreams that already seem likely to come to fruition.
“I would love for a big artist to cut it,” she says. “I think it could be male or female – maybe someone who has dealt with alcohol addiction in the past, someone that’s sober, or someone who knows someone struggling. I definitely have some dream artists in mind but I don’t want to jinx it!”
Litterski can trace her love of songwriting, which led to songs like “Liquor Store,” back to her early days as a child. But it wasn’t until she read A Natural Woman by Carole King that Litterski realized her career path was already set.
“I think I’ve always known that I was going to be doing music in some form, whether that was being an artist, being in a band or writing,” Litterski shares. “But I think it was when I read the Carole King biography in college that I even realized that songwriting was a job. Her story is so inspiring to me and really made me dig into the craft of songwriting.”
Litterski is grateful for the exposure of the Wide Open Country Contest, and excited about her future as a songwriter. But for Litterski, songwriting is mostly a way for her to share her thoughts, such as she did with “Liquor Store.”
“I’ve always used songwriting as a tool to express things that are hard to talk about,” Litterski explains. “It’s been a way of managing feelings. I think a lot of songwriters can relate to that. I love that you can write something extremely specific to your own life and find hundreds of people that relate.”
With that said, Litterski, who writes custom songs for people’s wedding and anniversaries, and does vocals for demos, has big dreams of making being a songwriter her only job.
“I would definitely love to be a full-time songwriter,” she admits. “I do a lot of little side hustles right now to make money and the dream is to wake up and only write songs every day.”
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