Ashe's The Girl Of Your Dreams track-by-track: friendship drama, finding love and funerals

Two weddings, some friendship drama and a funeral speech that would apparently "slay". Ashe has quite a lot to unpack on The Girl Of Your Dreams.

The US singer-songwriter releases her fourth studio album off the back of her biggest UK chart success to date, with Stop The Wedding! having broken the Official Singles Chart Top 5. The track marks a new career best for Ashe, surpassing the Number 31 peak of her 2020 breakthrough hit Moral Of The Story.

"I feel like I've always had a really special connection with my British fans in particular," she tells Official Charts. "It feels extra cute and special that it's kind of breaking there first."

And while she's understandably thrilled with the success, Ashe admits she's approaching this album release rather differently to her first.

"I don't have as toxic a relationship with my career as I did for album one," she explains.

"I love this album. I'm so proud of it, and I'm so proud of what Stop The Wedding! is doing. But it's my one-year wedding anniversary this weekend, and that is even more important to me than anything else."

That newfound balance runs throughout The Girl Of Your Dreams, which finds Ashe revisiting old relationships, celebrating new love and occasionally settling a score or two.

So, from a tribute to her time with The Favors to a song about a former friend who seriously crossed the line, Ashe reveals the stories behind every track on The Girl Of Your Dreams.

MORE: Where every Ashe song and album has charted in the UK

Stop The Wedding!

"I always kind of felt like I started writing Stop The Wedding! the day I married John.

"I just felt so secure that day and also so sure of my decision. And if I wasn't sure, I felt very strong in that I could leave if I wanted to.

"I thought, 'Gosh, I could have really used that autonomy for my first wedding.'

"When we sat down and wrote it officially, I think in January of this year, I sat down at the piano and played most of what became the chorus with Annika Bennett and Noah Conrad.

"I was like, 'I don't know if there's something here, but I feel like Stop The Wedding! has sort of an iconic something to it. I think we should chase it.'

"When you find a little gem like that, you chase it hard.

"The best part about that song, and it being on radio and doing what it's doing, is that we have, like, 20,000 tempo changes in it! Speed up, slow down...

"I felt like we did whatever the song asked us to do. It was like the song was already there, and we were just being obedient to what it needed."

Lasso The Moon

A reunion with the writers behind Moral Of The Story, Lasso The Moon sees Ashe setting her romantic expectations rather higher these days.

"Lasso was one of the first songs we wrote for the album. Noah Conrad flew here to Nashville to do a week with me, and it was sort of a test to see if we still had musical chemistry.

"Noah and I did Moral Of The Story together, along with Casey Smith. Casey lives here in Nashville as well, so we put all three of us in a room together again and thought, 'Wouldn't it be cute if we still got it?'

"I remember writing Lasso The Moon and telling them, 'I'm just in such a playful, fun place in my life. I'm not hurting. I'm not miserable. I have been before, and I probably will be again at some point, because that's life.'

"But I wanted to write a fun song. And, like any song, I'm going to make it something incredibly important at the same time."

"I'm so sick of, 'Well, he's a nice guy,' and staying in mediocre relationships. I'm like, 'No, let's raise the bar a bit!'

"I think I'd just watched It's A Wonderful Life, which is one of Noah's favourite movies as well as mine.

"That whole idea of, 'If you want me to lasso the moon, I'll go get it.'

"I'm like, where is that guy in this day and age?"

Stardust

Not every love song has to be about a romantic partner. Stardust is Ashe's tribute to The Favors, her musical project with FINNEAS.

"I'd just made a record with FINNEAS in our band, The Favors, and Stardust was kind of my homage to that chapter.

"It felt like we were this shooting star in the sky. We knew it was going to be a short little moment, but it felt like we shone so bright, and then we were all going into another chapter.

"So Stardust was kind of an homage to that.

"And then I turn every song into a love song, because it's what I do!"

Love Bomb

"I brought this idea to the table because I'd just recently learned what love bombing meant.

"I was like, 'Whoa, that happened to me in my first marriage. I had no idea!'

"I knew I was being manipulated. I didn't know what the term was.

"I thought, what a funny, smart way to flip that around? You should love bomb yourself, because you're the one who really needs it.

"It's also fun because it was so playful. It's not an angry song, but it's a pretty self-aware song."

Blue Hour

"Blue hour is my favourite time of day. It's this magical in-between. It happens twice, before the sun comes up and then before it sets. It's like right after golden hour.

"I think it's kind of a witchy hour. I don't know where you stand on ghosts and all of it, but I feel like that's when they come into it!

"I'm very witchy, very into the whole divine feminine of it all lately, so I loved that transitional period.

"I brought that idea in to Annika and Noah.

"There are secret vocals on there that Annika recorded, so her little vocals are all over that."

Swan Lake

Ashe's current favourite on the album, Swan Lake might also be its most unexpected moment. And FINNEAS has a theory about why.

"Swan Lake is my favourite song on the album. That day was chaos, and so is the song!

"It's very similar to Stop The Wedding! We kept taking these wild turns that felt like they were honouring what the song wanted to do, speeding up and having these grand moments.

"There's this duality of the black swan and the white swan."

The chaos isn't limited to the studio, either. "Sorry, I'm throwing a chess piece at my cat," Ashe interrupts.

"There are also so many gang vocals. Every writer in the room is singing on that song.

"It's always been near the top for me. It's in my top three and it'll kind of waver, but I think it's my favourite right now.

"I'm so excited for fans to hear it because, to me, it's probably the least expected song on the record.

"I was talking to FINNEAS about it, and he was like, 'I kind of think Stop The Wedding! walked so Swan Lake could run.'

"They definitely have something to do with each other."

Sunburn

"Sunburn is my favourite song lyrically on the album.

"I wrote this in Nashville. It was just me and this gal Carrie K, who works with Noah Kahan a lot, who's a dear friend of ours.

"I brought in this little jazz thing, and I was like, 'We need something on here that's a simple verse-refrain. I don't want it to be overly poetic. I want it to just be so simple.'

"I loved the idea of two people looking at the exact same thing and viewing it through such different lenses.

"Even in friendships, looking at life or the world, or your views on things. We're experiencing the same thing and looking at it in completely different ways.

"I thought that was a really cool concept to tackle.

"As soon as I had Sunburn, I was like, 'Oh, there's something smart there.'

"I think it's the smartest song on the album, but it's really simple."

Always September

"I did this with Max Wolfgang, who works with Olivia Dean a bunch, and Noah.

"It came from thinking that, if the album was a certain time of year or a month, it would be September. So I had the title first. I had Always September as the title, and I thought, 'Let's write to that idea.'

"We pulled from old love and heartache, and how you can feel so stuck.

"Max sat down at the piano and played those chords, and we were like, 'Ooh!'

"I love a good piano, belty vocal ballad on a record. But if I'm going to do it, it's probably going to be less like Adele and more like Barbra Streisand, for the theatre of it all!

"So it feels like my Barbra Streisand ode."

The Girl Of Your Dreams

"I knew I wanted to call the album The Girl Of Your Dreams before we'd written the song.

"I had it in my head. I wrote it down, and it was just this knowing.

"I think it's the same way that you name a child. I don't even know if there's some crazier meaning. I just know that this is what my kid's name is!

"I felt that way about the album, so we sort of reverse-engineered it. I was like, 'Well, I want this song to exist.'

"I felt like I was in such a phase of my life where I'd really outgrown this perception of who the girl of your dreams is, and what the world expects of you and other people expect of you.

"I'd really let a lot of that go, which is super liberating.

"And now that we're actually going through every single song, I know that, of all the songs that made the album, this was the first one written!

"I think Lasso The Moon was the next day, because we had a couple of sessions here in Nashville with Noah and Casey.

"Casey had just had a baby, so she was popping her head in, throwing some lines out and running upstairs to breastfeed. It was such a cool environment."

Sweet Caroline

Now for the friendship drama. Just who is Sweet Caroline about? Ashe isn't naming names, but she reckons the person in question will know exactly who she is.

"This was probably the third song written on the record. It was that same trip with Noah and Casey. We were turning them out that trip!

"There's a gal who has caused quite the havoc in my life. I just thought, 'Wow, I've never really written a song about a friendship or a situation that was hairy, that wasn't my divorce.'

"I've really made a meal out of my divorce, but there was this one gal who was spreading all these ugly rumours about me and gossiping.

"I was like, 'Ooh, I think I'm going to let her have it!'

"It's funny because no one will ever know who she is except my very close friends.

"I had someone listen to the record recently, and they went, 'Was that about...?' And I was like, 'Yes!'

"She'll probably know it's about her, but that was a really fun song.

"It's my favourite bridge on the album. I just feel like you could see a bunch of people in the pub with a pint, just chanting along."

Funeral

For all the drama that precedes it, The Girl Of Your Dreams ends on its most personal note. And, perhaps surprisingly, one of its funniest.

"It's the first and only song I've ever cried writing.

"I brought the idea of Funeral in to Noah and Annika.

"I've always looked at love in a little bit of a morbid light, because true love is maybe one that lasts to the bitter end.

"My husband's vows were particularly wonderful. I mean, he crushed it! I thought, 'Gosh, if I go first, his speech at my funeral is just going to slay!'

"It was when we got to the bridge that I started crying.

"We were outside at Noah's studio in LA, sitting under his little umbrella. The sun was shining, and it was just acoustic guitar and the three of us.

"When I got to that line, 'I found who I belong to,' I just started to weep.

"I was like, 'Man, how lucky am I?'

"I really do feel that way.

"Funeral is the one that truly gets to the heart of this amazing love that I'm currently living in."

From Stop The Wedding! to Funeral, then. Turns out The Girl Of Your Dreams is quite the love story after all.

And for the British fans who've helped make this era such a success? Ashe hints that a reunion isn't far away.

"You'll see me soon," she teases. "It won't be long!"

Ashe's The Girl Of Your Dreams is out now via Atlantic Records.