What do you get a woman who has two gorgeous kids, 10 No. 1 hits as a songwriter, and her dream house in her beloved hometown for her birthday? That’s a job for Nicolle Galyon’s hit songwriting husband, Rodney Clawson, to figure out today.
Galyon, who has co-written songs including Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic,” Lambert and Keith Urban’s “We Were Us,” and Dan + Shay’s “Tequila,” is 41 years old today.
“If you have an idea … if you have a gut instinct that you need to do something or create something or make something, don’t talk yourself out of it,” Galyon said around the release of her 2022 debut album, firstborn. She used the pandemic to distill life lessons and observations, then craft them into a collection of compelling, universal truths.
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Nicolle Galyon has No Regrets
“I wasn’t writing this for commercial success,” she said. “I was writing this for me and my kids and for my personal legacy as a mom and a woman, not as part of my music role. It was just very much like, ‘I’m doing this so that I have no regrets. So there’s nothing left on the table from me and my family, and that I can be a good leader to my children.’”
Galyon was born in Winner, South Dakota, but grew up in Sterling, Kansas. She was a contestant on The Voice in 2012, where she first met Lambert and fellow contestant RaeLynn. While Galyon didn’t win, those friendships buoyed her Nashville career. Galyon has written multiple chart-toppers for Lambert. “We Were Us” was Galyon’s first No. 1 hit. And Galyon co-produced and co-wrote many of the songs on RaeLynn’s debut album.
Galyon moved to Nashville, but she always said that when she got her first No. 1 song, she and Clawson planned to buy a house in Kansas. That didn’t happen. They built a house in Sterling so she could live next door to her parents, Chris and LaMonna Galyon.
Roots and wings is a system that works well for the singer/songwriter and producer. She won the Academy of Country Music’s coveted Song of the Year multiple times. She was named BMI Songwriter of the Year in 2019 and earned a Triple Play Award for having three No. 1 songs in the same year. She partnered with Big Loud to create the female-focused record label Songs & Daughters.
Songwriting is a Non-Negotiable 9 to 5
“I treat my songwriting like a 9‑5 non‑negotiable exercise,” she told Nashville Edit. “I don’t write when I feel like it. I write until I feel something.”
Then she followed up her critically acclaimed debut album with a six-song EP she called second wife. Nicolle Galyon co-wrote the collection with Clawson. She is his second wife, and the cheeky but heartfelt EP is her perspective on that numerical position and the experiences that come with it. The couple released second wife on their 16th wedding anniversary – October 13, 2023.
“Song ideas are like little flies buzzing around the world all around you,” Galyon told American Songwriter. “If you’re not paying attention, you don’t really notice them. But if someone asks you to find one, you probably can. You just have to look. Most of my ideas come from listening to others talk. Maybe they’re talking to me. Or maybe they’re talking to someone else. Or maybe they’re a superhero on a kid’s television show or a headline in a magazine. But they will simply not be found if you’re not looking for them.”
Anyone who looked for Galyon leading up to her birthday wouldn’t have found her at home in Sterling. According to her Instagram posts, she and her son, Ford, were vacationing in Harbour Island, The Bahamas. Ford went to surf camp with Charles Kelley’s (Lady A) son, Ward.
(Photo by Claire Schaper)
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