The first song is a monumental moment in a songwriter’s life. For most burgeoning writers, that first song is merely a stepping stone to something greater. As many will tell, “You have to write a lot of bad songs before you land on a good one.”
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Though that first song is often far more juvenile than the work that actually helped them achieve the “big time,” it’s interesting to see where songwriters got their start. Country up-and-comer Ashley Cooke and veteran Nashville songwriter Emily Weisband recently stopped by the American Songwriter office and told us about their first time writing a song—and their stories couldn’t be more different.
Name a country artist and there is a pretty good shot Weisband has written with them. She’s a familiar face in the writing credits of hit albums these days and it’s all to do with her unique, and emotionally deep songwriting voice.
Everyone from Carly Pearce to Jordan Davis has hopped in the writer’s room with Weisband, hoping she can apply some of her magic to their projects. It seems that the same depth has always been present in Weisband’s songwriting. Her first song, which she wrote at just 11 years old, was far more mature than you’d expect from a preteen.
“My dad writes songs and I idolized my dad,” Weisband tells American Songwriter. “My dad, to me, was a very immovable figure – like a hero.”
“So I wrote this song and I remember going into his office [and telling him],” she continues. “He said, ‘Oh, that’s so cute, play it for me.’ So I did. I remember he cried and I just felt so powerful. I felt like a wizard. I was 11 and I made a grown man cry. I caught the bug that day.”
The song was called “Soul on Fire” and Weisband remembers it being about Jesus dying on the cross, with the lyrics written from his perspective.
“My dad would always say, ‘Write what you know,'” Weisband says. “I was 11, I’d never dated. I was like, ‘Well, I go to church and learn about Jesus so…’ He got my first one and he’ll probably get my last.”
“Mine was not that,” Cooke jokes.
Cooke’s first song lives in a completely different world from Weisband’s. In an elementary way, the song was the first taster of the witty, clever songwriting voice she is using today. “I wrote a poem about Froot Loops,” Cooke continues. “It was like, ‘Be a Froot Loop in a world of Cheerios.’ Should we write it again and put it on the next album?”
“It was definitely not as soulful as yours,” Cooke tells Weisband, who replies, “That’s very clever in ways I was not.” Cooke and Weisband teamed up on the former’s latest record, shot in the dark, which is set to be released on July 21. According to a press release, the 24-track album sees Cooke “open her heart to tell the true tales of love, heartbreak, and all the moments in between.”
The pair wrote several songs together for shot in the dark, combining their individual strengths to create something equally lively and profound.
Watch Cooke and Weisband talk about their first songs in full, below.
Photo: Emily Weisband/Ashley Cooke at American Songwriter
