Stories Behind Songs: “Sober” by Gracie Cullison
Gracie Cullison, a Belmont University sophomore, is releasing her third single “Sober” this Friday, October 2.
Inspired by country music and doing daily TikTok livestreams taking song requests from attendees, Gracie’s audience has grown quickly over the past few months. She amassed over 4,000 TikTok followers and totaled nearly 10,000 streams across her two released songs “11:11” and “Lavender,” impressive for an independent artist and full-time college student. She and I meet for lunch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to talk about her upcoming single.
Gracie first started writing songs while at a sleepover with a friend, doing a YouTube “Write a song in one hour” challenge. When her stepdad died at the end of the 2010s, she wrote a song about it, turning songwriting into an effective coping and introspection mechanism. She recalls an early song titled “Fake Smile” about how “I would put a fake smile on around my friends, because I still had to go to school and pretend like my life was still normal.”
Upon starting as a songwriting major at Belmont last year, Gracie was “inspired by random things. I see or hear someone say something, I’m like, ‘I need to write a song about that.’” She writes multiple songs a week.
Ironically, the co-write resulting in “Sober” almost didn’t happen, especially as Gracie hadn’t co-written much before meeting now-frequent co-writer Ashley Nothnagel. Gracie describes her writing process as very introspective and almost too personal of a process to let someone else in on. She’s now more comfortable co-writing, and says Ashley is one of her favorite co-writers thanks to her talent and receptiveness to Gracie’s feedback while writing together.
Gracie recalls thinking of the idea for “Sober” while seeing a bachelorette party walking down Nashville’s famous street 12 South, “I saw them drinking and began thinking about sobriety and how seeing a person excited to celebrate love made me happy to celebrate that I was no longer in love with a man who was bad for me.” A lyric came to her mind, “Is it really over? I’m finally you-sober.” Upon bringing the lyric to a co-write with Ashley, they decided to incorporate more “alcoholic jargon.” They were inspired sonically by Megan Moroney, and the “raw-instrumental aspect of Luke Combs’ music.”
Not long after, the song was produced by Belmont audio engineering major Preston Todd after he had a school assignment to work with an artist on a song. He asked Gracie if she’d be down to complete the assignment with him, and she sent him three songs including “Sober.” Co-producer Mason Arcand liked “Sober” best, “He kind of had a different vision for it than what all of us had originally thought. But I was like, ‘This is your school project. Do whatever you want.’” Then it occurred to her that if it was being produced, why not release it?
The resulting song had rock-oriented production, contrary to Gracie’s slower, sad envisioning for the production, but she loved the final version. Instrumentals were recorded in Abbey Road Studios while Preston and Mason were studying abroad in London, and Gracie and Ashley flew back into Nashville during summer break to finish recording. Gracie didn’t get the master until shortly before the announcement of the single release.
She’s extra enthusiastic about this release after hearing the reception on her two earlier songs. Gracie blissfully recounts someone on her TikTok livestream telling her how her debut single “11:11” helped them through their pet’s death. Gracie says, “This is literally all I’ve ever wanted in my life. My songs are helping people.”
Going into the release of “Sober,” Gracie is especially excited for listeners to hear how her work with Preston Todd has improved since their June release “Lavender.” She smirks at me as she specifically teases how at the end of the upcoming song, there are fierce vocal changes.
Pre-save “Sober” here. Keep up with Gracie online at @graciecullison.
Comments