Nicolle Galyon Made a Career of Telling Other People's Stories — Until She Decided It Was Time to Tell Her Own
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Claire Schaper Nicolle Galyon
Accomplished songwriter Nicolle Galyon rarely capitalizes proper nouns, and her use of punctuation could be deemed somewhat questionable.
So it should come as no surprise that on the track list of her long-awaited debut album, firstborn, song titles were not capitalized, and each song title came with its own period at the end.
"It just makes it feel like a complete thought, a complete statement I guess you could say," explains Galyon, 38, in a recent interview with PEOPLE. "I really went about writing this whole record more like an author than an artist. And those titles are like chapters in a book to me, where each chapter needed to have a defined ending."
Granted, firstborn seems more like a beginning than any sort of ending for the woman who has provided the world a slew of lyrical masterpieces, including Miranda Lambert's ACM Award-winning "Automatic" and Dan + Shay's multi-platinum, Grammy-winning "Tequila." Yet, as the pandemic raged and Galyon retreated to her hometown of Sterling, Kansas, in 2020 to find physical and emotional shelter, she also found herself craving the chance to tell a little more of her own story.
Nicolle Galyon
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"I started thinking to myself that if I was gone tomorrow and my grandkids Googled me, would me writing a song about a 22-year-old breaking up with her boyfriend the story I wanted them to know?" she questions aloud. "Is that the story that my kids would know about me? I felt like I had to call bulls--- on myself. I couldn't call myself a storyteller if I hadn't told my own yet."
And the internal reflection didn't stop there.
"I realized that making a record telling my own story was something that if I didn't do it, I would kick myself forever," remembers Galyon.
So, on the first day of the calendar year of 2021, Galyon began creating firstborn, a truly exquisite collection of musical masterpieces telling the story of her life in a series of eleven melodic chapters, with the song "winner." serving as the ultimate thesis statement.
"That's the one that's the most zoomed out and tells you what the record is about to tell you in more detail," says Galyon of the song she wrote alongside Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. "It is all encompassing in terms of my journey as a woman, as a businesswoman, and as a mother."
Indeed, while Galyon could have easily solely told her own story, she did flock to a long list of her talented friends to join her on this journey, including Hillary Lindsey, Sasha Sloan and even music superstar Kelsea Ballerini.
"I really just ran to the people that made me feel the most safe," she explains of the long list of talented writers joining her on firstborn. "I really had to surround myself with the people that I felt were willing to go there with me."
And yes, it was worth the wait.
"Thank God the stars never aligned for me to do this 10 years ago," admits Galyon with a laugh. "Now, I truly get the privilege of saying that my first body of work that I ever put out isn't me figuring out who I am. It's me having figured out who I am."
Today, it is that woman that seems to have it all – a talented husband (equally accomplished songwriter Rodney Clawson), two thriving children (9-year-old Charlie and 7-year-old Ford) and a home back in the place where so many of her dreams still await her.
"I just don't feel like my story has been fully written there yet," says Galyon, who is now living once again in Nashville. "I also have this company that I have built, and I value. I have so many artists that are on the front end of telling their story and, you know, that's what brought me back."
Indeed, Galyon serves as the creative force behind Songs & Daughters, a record label and publishing house founded by the captivating wordsmith in 2019 that serves as the creative home for up-and-coming artists such as Hailey Whitters, Tiera Kennedy and Lauren Watkins.
"I needed to go back and really rediscover and remember who I was before I could really stand alongside these other artists that I work with and say, 'OK, I've done this too,'" Galyon explains.
And now, she has.
But that's not all she has accomplished. Because firstborn also features the gem of a song "five year plan.", which serves as the first time that she and Clawson have ever written a song together.
"I knew I couldn't write a record for our kids and not have him be a part of it," she says of 'five year plan.,' which she wrote with Clawson backstage in Oregon at a Morgan Wallen concert. "And so, that was the last song that I wrote for the record."
And once the record was completed, she cried.
"I was on the way home from the studio on my last day of doing vocals, and I realized that literally, if I died in a car wreck, my work was already done," Galyon says quietly. "My producers could finish the record, and someone could give it to my kids, and I knew that everyone would know who I truly was."
