Emerging pop star, and past Indiana University Jacobs student, releasing 'Growing Up Sucks'

This double national finalist for Michael Feinstein's Great American Songbook vocal competition knows how to write and sell songs. More than 1,100 people listen to Indianapolis native Lenox Monroe every month on Spotify. Instagram, however, ignited her success.

Lenox Monroe posted a cover song; Nashville noticed

Just for fun, Monroe posted a cover of herself mixed-voice singing Dolly Parton's hit "Jolene." That was in late 2021. From "Jolene" come Parton's lyrics about a love triangle.

"Your smile is like a breath of spring

Your voice is soft like summer rain

And I cannot compete with you

Jolene"

Once posted, Monroe's video bedazzled someone with power in the Nashville, Tennessee, music scene. The next year, December 2022, she traveled to Nashville for her first songwriting sessions. In 2023, she was back in Nashville to record six songs.

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New song, "Growing up Sucks" encourages Monroe to laugh, even after two giant losses

"Jolene" landed, and Monroe was discovered. Take that, you bullies who muddied her life throughout her middle- and high school years in Indianapolis. Her new song "Growing up Sucks," recently released, is meant to be a bouncy lesson on not taking things too seriously, she said.

"Growing up Sucks" bounces and pops, begging for dancing shoes:

"Can't call my mom up

To come here and save me every time it's raining

Oh well, tough love

Go on, ignore me, guess I'm just complaining"

"In high school I started writing songs. I didn't share them, except with my best friend, because of bullying." That friend encouraged Monroe to keep writing and singing. So did Monroe's voice teacher, Jeff Salmon (who worked on production and vocal coaching for the "American Idol Experience").

In 2018 Monroe's confidant, encourager and best friend died after a car accident. In 2020 Monroe's other confidant and encourager, Salmon, died unexpectedly. Recovering from two young friends' deaths, and particularly sudden ones, continues to gnaw at Monroe, who wrote "Growing up Sucks" as a reminder that life still has quality, and fun.

"We can laugh," she said over the phone. "We don't have to take everything so seriously."

Even so, memories of her best friend and of her teacher never dissipate.

“I knew in my heart that the only way for me to heal and honor my friend would be to write and share my music with others. I wouldn’t have this music or be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for her.”

Before "Growing Up Sucks"

Monroe grew up in Indianapolis and started performing on stage in elementary school. By middle school, she had been in dozens of musical theater productions, grabbing awards. Private classical vocal lessons began when she was 12, and through high school, she acted, sang in choir and studied piano and ukulele. Still in high school, she attended the esteemed Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, one summer.

In national vocal competitions including the Schmidt Vocal Competition (won best sophomore) and the Feinstein competition, she charmed. As do achiever types, she wanted more. Song writing was next.

Studying at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

Music has proved curative for Monroe. At the Jacobs School at Indiana University, she completed about two years of study before Nashville distracted her. Someday she may return. She hopes, too, to earn a degree, possibly at Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, in music therapy.

"I never wondered what's under the glitter," she sings in "Growing up Sucks."

Seems she's found a mountain of it.

More information on Lenox Monroe

Follow Lenox Monroe and hear "Growing up Sucks" on Spotify. Find her also at @lenoxmonroe and https://www.lenoxmonroe.com.

Watch for Monroe appearing occasionally at Bloomington's the Orbit Room, 107 N. College Ave.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Past IU student Lenox Monroe finds fame, sings 'Growing Up Sucks'