Ashley Cooke Reflects On Her Journey To First No. 1 With ‘Your Place’

Ashley Cooke is embracing all the love and support surrounding her, especially after earning her first No. 1 at country radio with “Your Place.” During a recent No. 1 celebration in Nashville with her co-writers, Jordan Minton and Mark Trussell, Cooke took a moment to reflect on this milestone feat and the journey this song has taken to get to this point. 

When the breakup anthem hit the top of the charts in June, the songstress shared the good news across social media using a sentimental video. Once the song appeared at No. 30, she began snapping brief clips with family, friends, and members of her team in various locations to document the song’s rise up the charts until it reached the very top spot. With all the anticipation that built over that time, Cooke admits that when the moment finally came, she didn’t feel how she expected to.  

“The weirdest part about it, and I actually was talking to the guys about this before too, I had put so much weight into the success and the moment of a number one song that when it happened, I was kind of like, now what does this mean? It felt amazing, but it didn’t feel how I thought it was going to feel,” she shared.

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Cooke then discovered that it wasn’t the moment itself that was the best part, but instead, it was the journey that truly made a lasting impact on her. 

“I think more than anything that tells me, as cliche as it is, it’s the journey, not the destination in that sense,” she continued. “And looking back at that video of counting down from 30 to 25 to 10 to all that stuff, all the people in that video, everybody that I got to be a part of this journey with on the way, that is the win. That sounds so cheesy, but it’s so real. And I had this breakdown moment when I hit number one, realizing these moments are amazing, but it’s so much bigger than that. It’s the journey in the process that you get to celebrate and feel. Everybody in my life, my friends, my co-writers, my everybody is just over the moon about it because of the fact that we got to do it together and be on this ride together, not just because of the moment that it hit number one and we now get to have plaques and celebrate. So yeah, it’s been really, really fun.” 

The Personal Experience That Served As Inspiration

“Your Place” appears on her 2023 debut album, Shot in the Dark. Cooke revealed it was not originally supposed to be a single from the project, however, she stuck to her gut and listened to the incredibly positive response from fans during her live shows, and ultimately decided to send it to country radio. On December 11, “Your Place” commanded the airwaves of 71 first-week stations and became the third most-added.

The tune was born from a personal experience that Cooke endured with an ex-boyfriend. She displays vulnerability and plenty of strength while detailing the aftermath of the relationship and having to navigate the difficulty of moving on.  

Throughout the chorus, she speaks her mind as she lets her ex know that he has lost the right to know how she’s doing or who she’s been spending time with. Cooke proceeds to use the title in a more physical sense as she sings, “You don’t get to care where I’m waking up these days/ It ain’t your place.”

While reflecting on the events that inspired the song’s message Cooke said, “I had been through a relationship where I was not treated too great. I was cheated on, the whole nine yards… I walked in the room with Mark and Jordan and I was telling them the story and I had this idea in my phone of ‘it ain’t your place.’ And I loved the idea of the flip of, ‘it ain’t your place,’ metaphorically speaking, to know these things or to be where I am and know all of the stuff about my life anymore, but also you don’t get to care where I am because it ain’t your place, house or apartment wise. And I loved it. So we got in the room and they love that idea and it just kind of really happened easily. It just flew out of us.”

She went on to say that they didn’t plan to write a radio song that day, but it just happened naturally while churning out a tune that’s “real” and that “felt the most authentic” to her life. 

“We just walked in trying to be honest and real and then Jimmy produced it like a hit. So that paid off well.”

The Positive Response From Fans Influenced The Fate Of The Song

Before it hit the airwaves, fans grew to love the honesty of the song while hearing it on Ashley Cooke’s first-ever headline tour. She revealed that the excitement she felt from the crowd each night while performing this song was “undeniable.” 

“Every single city people lost their minds over and it was just this very organic feeling of momentum that happened with the song. I don’t know if it’s just because of the melody that we wrote or the way that Jimmy produced it. I don’t know what it was specifically. For me, it just felt like the most real and raw and my actual story and the emotion behind it was really there. So I don’t know if it was my delivery, the answer is magic happened. I don’t really know what it was, but we’re lucky that we got to be there in the moment when it did. And I’m really happy that we got to choose the song that the fans put their hands up and said, ‘we love this song. We want this song to be the one that goes through radio.’ Because of that, it did.”

This fall, the Florida native will continue celebrating her first No. 1 hit on her headline tour of the same name. The trek kicks off on Oct. 23 in Seattle, Washington and runs through February with stops in 17 cities nationwide (with more to be announced later). Cooke will be joined by special guest Greylan James.