Hangovers suck.
But skipping work over a hangover isn’t cool, either.
In fact, putting the nose to the grindstone in the middle of an alcohol-induced headache can actually bring positive results, as Ashley Cooke and four co-writers discovered. They held a four-day songwriting retreat, Jan. 6-9, 2025, at Smith Lake in Northern Alabama as she started building material for what would become the ace album, released Nov. 14 by Big Loud. They were so productive in the first part of the trip that they turned their last night of the retreat into a big celebration. They paid for it on getaway day.
“We woke up super hungover,” she remembers.
But Cooke and her writing partners – Johnny Clawson (“Weren’t for the Wind,” “Swear Words”), Seth Ennis (“Amen,” “Boys Back Home”), Joe Fox (“It Won’t be Long,” “Last Night Lonely”) and Kyle Sturrock (“Texas,” “Get to Drinkin’”) – had a quota for the trip, and they were one song short. They’d started the retreat by writing a verse and chorus for a song called “Raised Running,” and finishing that was the quickest way to meet their obligation.
“We’re all sharing a brain cell and trying to get through this,” Cooke says with a laugh.
In addition to picking up on “Raised Running,” part of the conversation hung over from the previous night, too.
“Me and Joe had a massive debate the night before with Kyle and Johnny on what was the best John Mayer record,” Ennis recalls. “They were wrong, and I think me and Joe were right, but alcohol definitely had something to do with how loud that debate got, and that carried over into the song the next day.”
As they worked through “Raised Running,” Ennis threw out one phrase – “Baby, put those baby blues away” – that turned everybody’s head. They all thought it was too good a line to bury it in a second verse, so they made it the title of a new song.
It used the word “baby” two different ways and worked so naturally that a listener wasn’t likely to notice the repetition. And with its minor holster image, it created a slight Western flair.
“I think that’s why all of our ears perked up when Seth said that,” Clawson notes. “We were, ‘Oh, that’s clever without being too clever.’ If you can catch someone’s attention without trying too hard, that is usually a pretty good recipe for something that people will come back to.”
Fox developed a slinky chord progression on guitar, just enough out of the ordinary to raise an eyebrow.
“There’s one out-of-place chord,” he says. “Off the top of my head, I think it’s a two-major, which in a major scale, the chord progression should be two-minor. Adding that two-major kind of makes it feel a little funky, a little different.”
The chorus emphasized the song’s dilemma: Does the couple stay or go? It all sounded so good that they made it the opening stanza. That used to happen frequently – think Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” Alan Jackson’s “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” or Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” – but occurs more infrequently in the current atmosphere.
“If you can start a song with the chorus, you’re immediately in hit land,” Clawson suggests. “Other things have to go right, obviously, but that formula has worked plenty of times before.”
Once the chorus played out, they added detail in the verse – the couple is prepping for a 7:30 reservation, but it’s already 7:31, and she notices he’s undone one button on his shirt. She recognizes the move: He’s thinking about “something dirty, it ain’t martinis in a glass.” Clever, eh?
By verse two, she’s clearly taking him seriously – she allows a kiss, insists they’re still heading out, but then gives in again. Line by line, it’s an ordinary development, but in the big picture, that verse cinches the song’s atmosphere.
“If the whole song was her saying, ‘Hey, stop,’ then it kind of just feels like the #metoo movement,” Fox observes. “I feel like with the second verse, where she’s down to it, it gives it a mutual agreement.”
In the fourth and final chorus, they tagged it with another half-chorus, recognizing that it’s now 7:58, and she changes her tune – “don’t you put those baby blues away” – giving the tale a bit of a happy ending.
“That ‘Baby Blues’ song literally just flowed,” Cooke says. “I have a feeling if it didn’t feel that way, based on our hungover state, we all would have been like, ‘We’ll just finish this back in town.’ But it’s a really cool idea, and it was just so easy.”
So was the first recording.
“The demo happened even quicker,” Ennis says. “I’m pretty sure Joe already had some of his equipment packed up, because he was running tracks that day. He did get Ashley’s vocal there at the cabin right before we left, and I think we just had a guitar/vocal.”
Clawson threw harmony on it before they hit the road back to Nashville. The writers all felt that “Baby Blues” was the highlight of the trip, but the label didn’t hear it that way “This was one of those songs that I fought for big-time,” Cooke says.
Ultimately, they compromised – she could cut “Baby Blues” if she’d commit to another song Big Loud preferred – and she recorded it in the front studio at Sound Stage with producer Dann Huff (Kane Brown, Keith Urban), who took to it immediately. “She’s a really intuitive songwriter,” he says. “She just finds a slight difference in what could normally be a somewhat cliché, or overused, type of situation. She always finds a different angle.”
Huff found a different angle, too, carving out not one, but two solo sections. “After the first or second time that we played it down with the band,” Cooke recalls, “he went, ‘You know, I’ve already heard the chorus twice now. You started with the chorus, and I love the chorus, but I just kind of feel like this song is such a vibe that people want to just sway with their partner with their beer and have a good time for a second.’”
Guitarist Derek Wells crafted a solo after the second chorus that could have easily fit Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band in the 1970s. After the third chorus, steel guitarist Justin Schipper and Wells split an atmospheric run. “I think I had a little buyer’s remorse right before we were mixing it,” Huff admits. “I think I experimented with taking one of the solos out, but didn’t.”
Clawson and Cooke, who were already friends, briefly explored a relationship that they revealed publicly around the time that “Baby Blue” was released on the ace album Nov. 14. The two have since moved on amicably.
Big Loud revised its thoughts about “Baby Blue” after seeing crowd reaction at her live shows. The label released it to country radio via PlayMPE on June 2. It launched at No. 57 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated July 11. Cooke meanwhile has made the song a highlight of her live set, bringing a blue-eyed guy to the stage as a foil when she performs it, as she did during a Billboard Country Live event at Nashville’s Category 10 on June 5, bringing out comedian Matt Rife.
“It became this flirty anthem,” she says of “Baby Blues.” “I couldn’t love the song more.”
