Ashe has made plenty of sad songs, but she’d never cried while writing one until “Funeral.” Ironically, the ballad — the second single from her upcoming fourth album “The Girl of Your Dreams,” out Oct. 16 via Atlantic Records — is actually pretty joyful. Despite its title, “Funeral” sees Ashe reveling in the comfort that comes from knowing you’ve found your person. What begins with a simple piano melody soon builds to a bombastic, trumpet-led celebration inspired by New Orleans funeral marches.
I don’t know why — I just think about death a lot and I think about love a lot and I think they are very closely intertwined,” Ashe tells Variety over Zoom from Nashville. She’s taking a walk to her favorite coffee shop, and the casual nature of the call along with Ashe’s knack for candid conversation makes our interview feel more like two friends catching up on FaceTime. Alongside working once again with Conrad, who produced the entirety of the record, Ashe found herself reflecting during the writing process about “Moral of the Story,” which she wrote while going through a heart-wrenching divorce.
Now healed and happily married to musician John Canada, Ashe penned the album’s lead single “Stop the Wedding!” — a theatrical plea with her younger self to leave her prior marriage before it started — as the “older, wiser sister of ‘Moral of the Story,'” she says. There’s such an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life and where things are at — I’m not grateful for an abusive ex-husband, but I’m grateful for a story and for art that I am so proud of.” This mindset has allowed her to let go and feel “less emotionally charged” around the release of the album, which is her first after signing with Atlantic. I mean, I’m also saying that at the same time that I’m having the biggest release of my career.” Indeed, “Stop the Wedding!” has quickly become Ashe’s biggest solo debut since its release on Aug. 7.
Within the first three weeks, it racked up 15 million Spotify streams and has become a top 50 trending song on TikTok, inspiring a trend where people share the reasons they left relationships as a warning to others. Now people are pointing back to, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the same girl who put out ‘Moral of the Story.'” She adds, “I really feel like I’ve arrived. And I’m like, good thing this didn’t happen sooner.
It’s correct that ‘Stop the Wedding!’ is the song that’s changing everything.” Ashe also loves the idea of the song being a wake-up call for people to “realize that they’re not stuck,” she says. Beyond the TikTok trend, she shares that a friend of her husband’s sent her a video of his 3-year-old daughter singing all the words. And she has this callback memory to ‘Stop the Wedding,'” Ashe says, getting teary-eyed.
And I just cried and was like, ‘Man, that is the whole point.'” “Stop the Wedding!” has also set the tone for the visual world of “The Girl of Your Dreams” with an old Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock-inspired music video directed by Silken Weinberg. Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief” and “Dial M for Murder” has been a big reference for Ashe, who wants to channel “this sort of softness about her that I really admire.” And it won’t be the only time we see Ashe on screen during “The Girl of Your Dreams” rollout. This cinematic, theatrical feel is at the core of “The Girl of Your Dreams,” which is more playful and whimsical than Ashe’s past work, drawing on ’70s influences including ABBA and Queen.
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