Artist: Josie Toney
Hometown: Olympia, Washington
Song: “City Girl Blues”
Album: Extra
Release Date: April 7, 2023
Label: Like You Mean It Records
In Their Words: “‘City Girl Blues’ was one of the last tracks written for the album, Extra, which was recorded in summer of 2020. From 2018-2020 I lived in Boston, by far the biggest city I had really experienced, and I loved being in school there. Between the hustle to and from class, riding the T, and the endless things to do in a big city, the longing for wilderness was only a distant nagging feeling until I graduated in December of 2019.
“I was already starting to feel claustrophobic when the stifling weight of the COVID pandemic hit the city, and all the things I loved about it vanished. Suddenly all I could think about were the skyscraper evergreens and endless tides of my home on the Puget Sound of Washington State, and it started to feel like between class, networking, and gigging, maybe I’d ‘paid my dues’ in the city and I was ready to make a home somewhere green.
“This brought me to Nashville, where I now very happily live on two acres of my very own; I even managed to find property with a couple of evergreen firs to stand beneath when I miss home. Extra is full of themes like home and the search for belonging, and ‘City Girl Blues’ addresses the particular affinity we have for whatever environment we grew up in — whether it’s the Smoky Mountains, the Mississippi River, or Washington State, where the water meets the woods.” — Josie Toney
Photo Credit: Natia Cinco
Video Credit: Jesse Weeden
