“One Night Standards”
Ashley McBryde
Written by Nicolette Hayford, Shane McAnally, and Ashley McBryde
2019
Ashley McBryde’s “One Night Standards” shares both a co-writer and a sense of desperate loneliness with Kacey Musgraves’ “Space Cowboy,” but their ways of handling that loneliness couldn’t be more different.
McBryde’s hit recalls the “tell it like it is” songwriting of Loretta Lynn with a modern woman’s approach to life and love. She’s clear eyed and candid as she insists that this tryst serves only one purpose: to scratch the most human itch so she can get back to the solitary life that she is accustomed to.
There is none of the guilt and shame found on “Help Me Make it Through the Night” or even “I May Hate Myself in the Morning.” She doesn’t feel those emotions and she does not want to know if her tryst partner does. He has one job to do, and once it’s finished, he can leave.
McBryde’s sharp songwriting is heightened by her delivery of the lyric, which is as ruthless as this song demands: “You don’t want to hear about my last breakup. I don’t want to worry ’bout space you take up. I don’t even care if you’re here when I wake up.” Don’t go looking for some catch in her voice that suggests otherwise. This isn’t love or even lust. It’s just business.
McBryde is one of the few modern artists who can perform on the same level as the women from the nineties, and “One Night Standards” is the closest we’ve come to restoring that legacy on country radio. Terri Clark would’ve made a career record out of it back in the day. Five years since its release, it is still her highest charting solo hit, and we’re still waiting for this remarkable talent to get the recognition and reception at radio that she deserves.
Additional Listening:
More great McBryde hits that should’ve been
- “Girl Goin’ Nowhere,” her breakthrough record
- “Bonfire at Tina’s,” the best single from her landmark Lindeville project
- “Learned to Lie,” her strongest song to date
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It was becoming increasingly clear to me by 2018 that there was no shortage of excellent country music being recorded, it just no longer was happening with Nashville’s stamp of approval nor being promoted on country radio.
McBryde felt immediately authentic upon first lesson, some wonderful and weird blend of classic and contemporary country.
Country music needed Ashley McBryde.
It was so refreshing to hear such a blunt and unapologetic female take on a one night stand. The confidence to invite and expect somebody to be as comfortable using you as you are them is wickedly honest.
McBryde is an incredible talent, and this song is stunningly great.
For a more emotionally loaded collection of conventional signifiers around the subject a one night stand, Trace Adkins “One Nightstand”, from his “Comin’ on Strong” album popped into my head.