Story Behind the Song: Ashland Craft, ‘Your Place or Mine’

Ashland Craft’s “Your Place or Mine” finds a heartbroken woman drowning her sorrows at a bar — and, hopefully, leaving with “Mr. Lonely across the room.” The singer says she’s never been much for one-night stands, but she was happy to write about using one to get over an ex.

Craft co-wrote “Your Place or Mine” with Lee Starr and Willie Morrison, the latter of whom was actually one of her Uber drivers during one of her first trips to Nashville. Below, the singer shares the story behind the song, and behind her co-writing relationship with Morrison.

[“Your Place or Mine”] was actually written — it was one of the songs I first wrote when I moved to Nashville — one of the very first songs. I wrote that with Willie Morrison and Lee Starr, and I have to tell the backstory, ’cause this is just a weird happening.

So, Willie, I actually met him because he was my Uber driver the first time I came to Nashville to write music. He picked me up — I think I had just written with Jordan Fletcher that day; he was my very first write in Nashville — and then my band and I were at Guitar Center picking up some stuff, and then Willie picked us up in an Uber. [Laughs]

And, it’s Nashville — you get to talking about what you do. And we kind of said we were both musicians, and then he messaged me later, like, “Hey, we should write before you leave town.” And I was like, “Sure.” And then, Willie ended up being one of my favorite co-writers ever …

It’s an insane story, but Willie actually introduced me to Lee, and that was our first three-way co-write together … We wanted to write a song that wasn’t — I don’t know any other way to put it — we didn’t want to be gaudy about it, but we wanted to speak for the people that maybe needed that one-night stand just to get over it.

I’ve never been a one-night stand-er, but I know there’s a lot of girls out there that feel like that’s a forbidden topic in a sense, but we wanted to write it in a tasteful way to where it wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m just gonna go do whatever I want,” it was based on the fact of somebody being heartbroken and needing something to get you out of that mindset for a minute.

I love the carefree attitude that it gives, in a sense, but it’s also not over the top … “Your Place or Mine” was just a magical song … and it is still, to this day, one of my favorite … I just love it ’cause it’s vibey, and it’s got almost a Fleetwood Mac-type approach to it. I love the whole mood of the song …

The most important thing for me is to sing the song as if I were trying to tell the story, not just sing it to sing it, so the more emotion I can put into it, the better, and it’s so easy when you have a song that’s written in a way that just comes out, you know?

Who Is Ashland Craft? 5 Things You Need to Know: