When writing a song alongside her longtime boyfriend,Abbey Conehas come to find that love can serve as a great topic to tackle.
“I guess any love song we write together is from a place of love,” Cone, 24, told PEOPLE in a recent interview. “Nathan [Spicer] and I have been together for maybe five years in October. I wrote most of my debut EP with him and he co-produced all of it — and I co-produced this song with him too.”
Known as “If You Were a Song,” the light and breezy tune describes the melodic magic of love. “I loved the idea of ‘If You Were a Song’ being, for lack of a better word, a basic title,” she says of her first fully independent release that she wrote alongside Spicer and Nate Cyphert. “I liked that juxtaposition of it being such a basic title but being really cool.”
And as inspiration swirled around the title, so did it around the song’s heartfelt lyrics.
“I was really just thinking about the audience,” says Cone, who moved to Nashville when she was just 16 years old. “I wanted to write something that I felt appealed to everyone but produce it in a way that was very fresh and me. We were very picky about each line riding towards that hook, but not being cheesy.”
Abbey Cone.Bethany Reed
It’s a feeling that Cone went with, especially since the Texas native is now solely in the driver’s seat of her career after a few years where she felt as if she was left without any clear direction for her career.
“Starting in 2019, my creativity for multiple reasons was very low,” says Cone, who coincidentally was inducted into CMT’s Next Women of Country Class in 2020, only to watch all the hoopla surrounding the recognition hit a standstill due to the pandemic. “I just kind of lost my spark a little bit. My creative energy was stifled a bit.”
“I felt like, regardless of if I failed or succeeded, I could make my sound whatever I want to,” she explains. “That freedom just really brought back my creative energy and my drive.” She pauses. “The truth is that I’ve wanted a record deal since I was 9 years old. And so, to be in a position where I had to choose to walk away from that because it was the best decision for me? Well, it shook my reality.”
Indeed, the shift in labels added to the stress of the pandemic added to the constant uncertainty that comes with chasing one’s musical dreams still leaves Cone with some leftover anxiety.
“I’ve gotten my mojo back, but I’m still healing at the same time,” says Cone, who is set to release more new music this summer. “I’m doing both in synchronicity with each other. That’s really magic for me because I’m still writing songs about everything that I’ve gone through while also writing songs about feeling the best I have in a long time. I’m actually in a really great place. I’m really happy right now.”
And it’s this happiness that her longtime boyfriend loves to see.
“He has seen me change in almost every way,” she says. “I had blonde hair, now I have brown hair!” She laughs. “I met Nathan when I was 19. We respect and love each other so much, but we also work together. There is a business aspect of our relationship too that we have to be super honest about. Obviously, as my partner he wants me to be happy — and I’m happy now. I really feel like I’m the most myself right now that I’ve ever been.”
source: people.com
