‘I Have To Play Music With Her’: Melissa Carper and Brennen Leigh’s Extraordinary Co-Writing Partnership
Photos: Lyza Renee
Written by: Meredith Lawrence
“I have to play music with her,” singer/songwriter Melissa Carper thought the first time she saw fellow singer/songwriter Brennen Leigh play live, circa 2009. Listening to Leigh on stage at the Evangeline Café in Austin that night as she played her way through old country and bluegrass tunes, Carper felt a kinship, immediately. She too knew and loved the same songs. When they met, Carper offered to play bass for Leigh; soon, they started swapping in and out of each others’ bands, Carper on upright bass, Leigh on mandolin.
“I think we come from the same musical vernacular in a lot of ways,” Leigh says. “We both had this very deep relationship with old country.”
Of music’s many partnerships, co-writing can be the most vulnerable — inviting another creative spirit and vision into your own. When Leigh first suggested the two co-write a song, Carper was hesitant, unsure what would happen to her creativity if she shared it with someone else. Eventually, she consented. In the years that followed, Carper and Leigh have co-written a dozen or so songs, and built one of the greatest partnerships and friendships in modern country music.
Photo: Lyza Renee
“I trust her so completely with artistic things that if I have an idea I really believe in…I just send it to her,” Leigh says. “I don't feel proprietary about any of my ideas with her, because I know my taste and hers are very aligned.”
“Brennen really opens up my mind,” Carper says. “She'll think of stuff I would have never thought of that really make the song something bigger than it would have been.”
Sometimes the duo writes a song in the same room (or tour van, more often than not) all together, others, they pass the song back and forth for months, before it feels right. Simply being in Leigh’s presence is often enough to get her creativity flowing, Carper says.
“Being around somebody that is constantly creative like that, it sparks you,” she says. “Say you're in a slump, and you're not feeling creative, you get around somebody who is, then it's like it sparks the creativity inside of you to start feeling that way.”
Carper and Leigh’s trust of each other and dedication to their craft translated into a coterie of expansive, funny and sad songs, each of which rings emotionally true. Sometimes the ideas come out of hand, others from a moment of real life inspiration. “Fly Ya To Hawaii,” which the pair recorded as their Wonder Women of Country trio with Kelly Willis, started as a flirtatious note Leigh sent to a potential love interest; the duo wrote “Somewhere Between Texas and Tennessee” (which Carper recorded on her 2024 album, Borned in Ya) after Carper and Leigh discovering they were both travelling I-40 mere miles apart and stopped roadside to meet up for a quick catch up; and “Let’s Stay Single Together” (also on Borned In Ya) was inspired by a short-lived pact with a friend.
Sometimes the duo’s songs are rooted in more personal truths, too. Several years ago Carper and Leigh wrote “Billy and Beau,” a poignant, lovely song about an unrequited teenage love triangle. In it, the narrator (presumably a girl) recounts her crush on a local farm boy, Beau, and the conviction that their friend, Billy, is likewise smitten (“Billy never told me so / But I just knew it / Billy loved Beau”). After a really good day visiting the zoo, Billy throws his arm around Beau, intoning, “I sure had fun.” It’s a simple gesture of innocent devotion from a youngster unwilling or unable to express himself more.
Carper added the line from her own experience growing up closeted and gay in a Christian household. “The heart wants to go where the heart wants to go / you can’t undo it,” as the song goes. “Billy and Beau” packs a gut punch, in part because alongside immense emotional depth it fits into a few, spare lyrics, the song doubles as a sweet reflection of nostalgia for innocent good times with childhood friends, all romantic feelings aside.
“I think there’s a certain element of fearlessness that she has. She will put something in words, in a very natural way that I wouldn’t dream of putting in a song.”
“I think there's a certain element of fearlessness that she has,” Leigh says of Carper’s songwriting. “She will put something in words, in a very natural way that I wouldn't dream of putting in a song.”
When Leigh conceived of their song “Pray the Gay Away,” which Carper recorded with her (now defunct) Buffalo Gals band with fiddler Rebecca Patek, it was a satire. But to the song, Carper added a sincerity which balances its wry wit with a tangible, relatable respect.
On an early spring day in Austin, during SXSW, the Wonder Women of Country performed the song live on the Meanwhile in Music stage. Live, the song sounds less like the call to action its title might suggest, and more like a celebration, driven by the refrain: “No matter how much I pray / every day I wake up gay.”
Photo: Aisha Golliher
Nuance is easily lost to a world that demands black and white ideas, but the song retains it. In the song, the narrator’s mother prays everyday for her child not to be gay. In response, the singer too addresses God, asking gently, “Dear God / Won't you please help Mama understand / That this is just the way you made me / And it's not a sin.” The exchange is framed not as a rebuke, but rather a recognition of love from and for someone trying the best to accept something she can’t fully grasp.
“I do believe that my mom, she accepted it as much as she could, and I gotta respect that too,” Carper says. “She still loved me, she still treated my girlfriends that I brought home really sweet, and she would buy them Christmas presents, and she still prayed for me that I would eventually convert back. I could not convert back because I never was straight.”
Sometimes Carper and Leigh write a song that’s just goofy, too. Their first co-writing endeavor — which both have yet to record — was called “Back When I Didn’t Drink No More,” riffing off something Carper said to Leigh in jest once. Indeed, Leigh has a tendency to remark, ‘that’s a song,’ after someone delivers a line she likes in conversation, Carper says — it’s part of Leigh’s robust sense of humor.
Carper and Leigh’s repertoire includes a long list of songs they’ve yet to record or release, but which reveals that the duo’s inimitable blend of old country stylings and clever, thoughtful lyrics will be in fine form for years to come. Their unreleased titles include a couple with a cowboy bent — a song about the sunset in the desert, and one called “Mister, Do You Need a Ranch Hand”; some cheeky numbers— “Ready for Some Lovin’,” and “Looking for a Farmgirl;” and yet another song about life on the road: “From Motels to Hotels.”
Photo: Lyza Renee
In each of their songs, released and unreleased, Carper and Leigh’s shared appreciation for slower times and quality, old fashioned things shines through. To that end, they co-wrote the dulcet, longing “Won’t Be Worried Long” (released on their Wonder Women of Country album) as a self-soothing homage to the old country music they love so dearly, and which bonded them in the first place.
And those old country songs still ring true
They pick me up every time I'm feeling blue
You hear a worried gal singing a worried song
I'm worried now but I won't be worried long
Guess I'm worried now but I won't be worried long
“It’s like smelling your grandmother's recipe that only she knows how to make. You can't replicate it, and it's such a safety net,” Leigh says. “It’s a life preserver, or a lighthouse, something you can grab on to; and that's what we were trying to convey.”
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