Ashley McBryde’s New Song ‘Andy (I Can’t Live Without You)’ Is the Perfect Song for Your ‘Person’ [LISTEN]
Leave it to Ashley McBryde to write the perfect love song -- about someone who isn't her significant other. The only song on McBryde's Girl Going Nowhere album that she wrote solo, "Andy (I Can't Live Without You)," is about McBryde's longtime friend, guitarist and roommate, Andrew Sovine.
Readers can press play above to watch McBryde play a stripped down version of the tender love-hate song. McBryde wrote "Andy (I Can't Live Without You)" on a night when she came home and had to deal with some of Sovine's messes.
"I had gotten home before him and asked when he was gonna get to the house, and he texted and said he wasn't coming home that night. I thought, 'Well, I'll drink by myself,'" McBryde tells NPR in an interview. "I reached up and grabbed my bottle of Elijah Craig [bourbon], and there wasn't as much in it. He'd been drinking my whiskey without asking. Then I looked at my house and my life. It was been a wreck since Andrew Sovine had moved in with me. I thought I would just kinda vent and complain about it. Through doing that, I [realized], 'Man, that is my absolute best friend in this whole wide world.'"
McBryde captures the universal struggle of every relationship, friend or romantic, in the first verse: "Drink my whiskey without asking / Put your boots up on my couch / Drives me crazy to remind you more than once / To take the garbage out / You use my good towels on the dog / That's the only thing I've asked you not to do / Most days I'd love to lock you out / But I can't live without you."
In the chorus, she defines the reasons for sticking it out: "'Cause you've got my back / Even when I'm wrong / You're the only one that knows me and my heart can't get along / I got some reasons to cry / Can't tell you which one / But you don't ask no questions / You just hold me 'til I'm done / And when I'm looking to fight, you flat refuse / I can't live without you."
McBryde says that Sovine is her best friend, and they've never been romantically involved. However, their life together has given people that idea.
"I think people in town for a long time thought Andrew and I were together. I mean, I know they did," she shares. "I joke with people: 'This is why I don't write love songs, guys, because that song is about my buddy.'"
"Andy (I Can't Live Without You)" is Track No. 8 on McBryde's major-label debut album, Girl Going Nowhere. That disc is set for release on March 30.
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