Celebrating Nashville Music: Helene Cronin on Songwriting, Perseverance, and Emerging Artists in the Scene

Takin’ A Walk Nashville

Host Sarah Harrelson interviews singer-songwriter Helene Cronin about her professional journey from Texas to the Nashville music scene. The

Key takeaways

Helene Cronin transitioned from real estate back to full-time music pursuit by committing to monthly Nashville trips.
The song 'Speaking Terms' was co-written with Joy Beth Taylor and achieved success after being cut by Ella Langley.

Main topics

Nashville songwriting career path
Songwriting process and inspiration

Notable quotes

The real gift is when the right song at the right time finds the right artist.

Conclusion

An inspiring look at how persistence and authentic connections can lea

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Taking a walk, Nashville. Speaker 2 (0:02) Hey, listeners, it's Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a Walk, Nashville. Can you believe it's almost been one year since we started Taking a Walk, Nashville? I hope you have been enjoying us on the journey, all of our conversations. Please give us a review wherever you listen to your podcast and follow us at Taking a Walk, Nashville on Instagram and social media. Today I have with me singer-songwriter Helene Cronin. She has released a lot of her own music, including her latest record, Maybe New Mexico. But you've probably also heard songs that she's penned, such as Speaking Terms by Ella Langley. We talk about the story behind the song she's written, her own journey from Texas to Nashville. and all of her own music as well. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 1 (1:08) Welcome to Takin' a Walk Nashville with your host, singer-songwriter Sarah Harrelson. Speaker 2 (1:14) Today I have with me a very special guest, songwriter Helene Cronin. You may know her if you've listened to the song Speaking Terms on Ella Langley's new album, Dandelion. She also has her own record out called Maybe New Mexico. We're going to talk all about it. Helene, how are you? Thank you for joining me today. I'm great. So Speaker 3 (1:37) happy to be here. back in Nashville, and thank you for having me on the program. Speaker 2 (1:41) Of course, and you're based in Texas, but you make a lot of trips up here to Nashville. So starting from the beginning, what was the point in your music career where you said, I'm going to start taking trips to Nashville to do rights up in Nashville instead of Texas? Well, not to Speaker 3 (1:58) give away too much Speaker 2 (1:59) about Speaker 3 (1:59) how long this has taken. I used to come like 97, 98, 99 and come to NSAI events. and network and get to know people. And that's where I met a couple of my mentors like Hugh Prestwood and Pat Pattison. And then I quit coming. My kids were little. I have two girls and I needed to get them raised up a little further. So I stopped coming until 2004 and I just felt this nudge like you went to Nashville but you didn't really finish the job. You didn't really explore it to the extent you could have. You know, I was doing the best I could at that season in my life, but I started coming back again to some NSAI events. Speaker 3 (2:42) I guess I came back and forth about three or four, five times a year, gradually worked up to six times a year. And then in 2012, at the end of the year, I had been doing real estate for about four years. And I told my husband, I don't ever have to stop songwriting. But if I want to pursue the Nashville piece, I got to be there every month for at least a week out of every month. And I just, I don't feel like I'm supposed to quit that. So, you know, his blessing and... Complete support. I began doing that 2013. It's been pretty much every month since then. And it's just, it's an inner fire that keeps me coming back and forth. It's not because anybody asked me to come to town. It's just where I was finding my place and my crew. And I write with so many amazing people. And all of that just kind of grew organically and just hard work and trips back and forth. Speaker 2 (3:37) And when you record your own music, Do you usually record that in Texas or here in Nashville? I Speaker 3 (3:42) don't ever record in Texas anymore. I did three albums of contemporary Christian music back kind of before I started making these trips and then stopped that and began just writing about life. So in 2014, I had this little handful of songs and I put out an EP that I recorded here. And then in 2015, I did another EP of seven songs and then... Just stopped for a while, and then my publisher at the time, about 2018, she said, I think you need to do a full-length record, and it needs to be you as the artist. Because I was here writing for other people and hoping to get cuts and hoping to be featured on bigger artists than me on their albums, and that wasn't exactly happening. But she saw something in me, and to this day I just appreciate that she... pushed me to do that. And so I recorded two albums with Matt King, who was an artist in the late 90s, 2000. He's just a musical genius. And he really helped develop me and helped me develop a sound and encouraged me with my voice because I didn't come to this thinking I could sing that great. I mean, I just sing. I don't, I'm not trained. But both he and my publisher were like, you can sing. And when you sing, you deliver the song. You need to do this. So. Speaker 2 (4:57) I'm sure it's a lot different from, you know, being in the writing room, writing the song to now you're the artist singing the song and performing it, releasing it. Speaker 3 (5:06) Yes. And I write so much that not every song is what I call a me song. There's a lot that are commercial and that, you know, I have a Cody Johnson cut from 2024. And I have a couple of songs with Brian Martin that he and I have written with other people. And those are their songs, you know. To write a body of work that represents me and the messages I want to put out into the world has been really kind of a beautiful and unexpected thing to have happen in my career. So I'm grateful. Speaker 2 (5:33) How do the Me songs come about? Because you know you're going into the right, wanting to write a song specifically about one of your experiences, or sometimes it's just the song that comes out that day and you feel really drawn to it. Once in Speaker 3 (5:47) a while, I will have an idea that I know is for me and for my project. Most of the time in Nashville, I come into the writing room to write whatever's there that day for whoever, whether it's going to be a commercial song that one of the other writers has a publisher who will pitch or they have inroads. All of my cuts have come about because of relationships with my co-writers. So I'm always open to that. And then once in a while, one lands and I just go, oh, I really want to record this. And that was the case with maybe New Mexico, the song. Speaker 3 (6:20) Partly true story and partly made up and partly from traveling