Today, Ashley Monroe releases “There You Are“, a contemplative piano ballad that showcases Monroe’s ethereal vocals that have recently hushed theaters across the UK on her recent tour with Little Big Town and during her showcase over the weekend at AmericanaFest. The song was written by Jessi Alexander, Margaret Findley, and Sally Barris, who Monroe worked with on some of her most well-known songs such as “Weed Instead of Roses”.
Listen to “There You Are” here / Watch the official performance video here.
“Sally Barris was one of the first people I wrote with in Nashville” says Monroe. “She co-wrote ‘Satisfied’, ‘Used’, ‘Weed Instead of Roses’ and a slew of other songs I’ve recorded through the years. Sally taught me new chords, helped my mom and I look for a place to live when we moved from Knoxville, and truly helped shape the way I write. One day in 2004, she played me a song she had written with Jessi Alexander and Margaret Findley called ‘There You Are’, and it absolutely slayed me. I’ve played it and sang it just about every time I’ve sat at a piano since 2004, and I feel it just as deep today as I did back then.”
“I sat down at the antique piano in Gena Johnson’s studio and started playing it one day, and she said, ‘I have to capture this!’ I’m so thankful she did. This song still moves me to my core, and I am so proud and honored to share its power with the world.”
“There You Are” follows the release of “Hot Rod Pipe Dream”, which was co-written with her longtime collaborator Brendan Benson and co-produced by Monroe and GRAMMY-winner Gena Johnson. The official video for the song debuted with CMT on a billboard in Times Square.
Over the last year, Monroe has been releasing new music, played her first Nashville headline show since 2015, and hit the road for a UK tour with Little Big Town. She has recently released a cover of Fred Eaglesmith’s “I Like Trains“, “Risen Road“, and her late 2023 single “Over Everything” which Billboard called “Airy, understated and clear-eyed, the song is lifted by the quiet assuredness in Monroe’s vocal.” Monroe’s recent work has been met with praise by American Songwriter, CMT, Stereogum, and People Magazine, who interviewed Monroe about her musical “fresh start.”
Her critically-acclaimed 2021 album Rosegold received praise from Rolling Stone, The Nashville Scene, No Depression, Vulture, Paste Magazine, Garden & Gun, Stereogum, Pitchfork and many more. In their 2021 Best Albums of the Year coverage Vulture proclaimed, “Monroe continues to refine her talents as a writer and a vocalist while expanding her artistic palette in a batch of songs that slides from synth-pop to spectral, psychedelic R&B to gothic pop to lush, orchestral balladry to muted country rock.”
