“You heard it here first, or if no one records it, you heard it here last,” joked J.T. Harding from the stage at Nashville’s Listening Room last Tuesday (April 3), where he was performing in a songwriters’ round with Josh Osborne (Sam Hunt, Blake Shelton) and Trevor Rosen (Old Dominion, Dierks Bentley). He was introducing a full-throated party jam called “Yawsome” (a play on the phrase “Y’all awesome”), floating it to the crowd to see what kind of response the song might evoke. As it turned out, the people loved it.
Harding was among the country music stars and Cyranos gathered in 10 venues across Nashville last week for the 26th annual Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival, the world’s largest to exclusively feature songwriters. Though the festival featured some recognizable names — Thomas Rhett stopped by a round featuring his father, songwriter Rhett Akins, and Brett Young, Dustin Lynch, and RaeLynn all participated — the most compelling reason to attend was just to satisfy the deepest level of country nerdery: going inside the writer’s room.
Country is unique in how consolidated its songwriting industry is, a fact illustrated in the festival’s endless showcases. At Tin Pan, publishing houses have their own sets, and friends perform with friends, illuminating the outlines of Nashville’s creative landscape and allowing audiences to play A&R. Would you recognize a hit when you first heard it, sung by someone who may not have a performer’s vocal chops strumming solo on a guitar? Every songwriter played a “No. 1” or several, sometimes even their “first No. 1.” For some, though, that descriptor would have been redundant — like when Liz Rose started playing “White Horse” at the Douglas Corner Cafe, and a rumble of “Taylor Swift” whispers filled the small room.
The real fun started when they started playing new songs, still clearly a little nervous even though no one participating was without hitmaking bona fides. The themes — love, heartbreak, family, nostalgia — recurred, each performer striving for an ever-so-slightly distinct take on classic country fodder. As a result, emotions ran high. “I wanted to go after Barry so you’d hear that his songs are as sad as they seem and mine are sadder,” said Lori McKenna after Barry Dean played “Diamond Rings and Old Barstools” (Tim McGraw). She proceeded to play “People Get Old” which was, appropriately, devastating. Dean then played a new song called “Just Don’t Make Her Look Dumb For Loving You,” a remarkable address to some unnamed man who was treating a woman like crap. It was the best kind of emotional warfare, the songwriters digging deeper with each passing round (and the audience looking for tissues).
Most attend Tin Pan South to see legends at work, or to hear the source of their favorite songs (the songwriters precede most tunes with some sort of anecdote about their genesis or how they got in the hands of country superstars). But the onslaught of variations on a theme (this writer heard two songs called “Drunk Me” and one called “Sober You”) made the writers stepping outside country’s requisite whiskey-swilling, backroads-touring tropes stand out even more. Baylor Wilson sang a few songs her fellow performers deemed “man-hating”: “A Boy Will But A Man Won’t” — more or less self-explanatory — and a jokey, sharp treatise on sexual harassment and sexism. Jimmie Allen, one of single-digit performers of color, performed a song he wrote about racism called “All Tractors Ain’t Green”: “I might sound a little different than I look…might go against the grain of that country boy model,” he sang. Both stood out for their songs, as well as what they represented: the artists still chipping away at country’s conservatism.
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Mostly, Tin Pan South is an opportunity to feel like you’re on the inside — where Natalie Hemby can just say “Miranda” and you know which one she’s referring to, and everyone speaks the language of charts and hits and “Has anyone cut that already?” which was the festival’s most common running gag. On the last night of the festival, at the legendary Bluebird Cafe, Bailey Bryan, Brett Tyler, and Matt Jenkins riffed about Sbarro and Applebee’s in between their more conventional hits. “Applebee’s will never buy this,” Jenkins joked — but given the fact that it stayed in your head after you walked out the door, they might want to give it a shot.
