[Cover credit to Erika Rock]
Singer/songwriter Ashley Monroe has shared her new single “Bitter Swisher Sweet” featuring Brittney Spencer, the latest from her upcoming album Tennessee Lightning, due out August 8, 2025. Accompanied by a video with footage of the two artists collaborating in the studio, the new song “revels in the highs and lows of escaping through self-medication.”
About the new song, Monroe says:
The day Logan Wall, Emily Landis, and I wrote this song, we were just chatting before we started and Logan said the phrase ‘Bitter Swisher Sweet.’ I don’t even really remember the context, but we all looked at each other and knew it was a title we should chase. I had a little groove and bass thing going (a sick beat, as I call them) that gave us our vibe. We wrote it in less than an hour, and I’ve dug it ever since.
This song makes me think of a specific season of my early teenage years, when my older brother and his friends sometimes allowed me to tag along while they cruised Gatlinburg or some random East Tennessee backroads. Whilst they smoked Swisher Sweets, I sipped Zimas in the back seat, and we would just get lost in whatever music we had blasting and forget we had a care in the world. We had lost our dad a couple years earlier, and when I look back on that time in my life, I think how those ‘young and dumb’ seasons are never really wasted. In a lot of ways, they keep us alive… so get high, get low, light up, come on, the night is young.
On working with Brittney Spencer, she adds:
When Gena [Johnson] and I were recording it, we kept saying, ‘I wish Brittney Spencer would sing on this!’ She is a dear friend of both of ours, and we are just blown away by her voice and her spirit. We’re so lucky she said yes!
Recorded in the wake of Monroe’s transformative bout with cancer, Tennessee Lightning documents her journey as “a celebration of life, love and the healing power of music.” In addition to Spencer and Stuart, the 17-song collection also includes contributions from special guests T Bone Burnett, Waylon Payne, Brendan Benson, Butch Walker, Karen Fairchild and Armand Hutton.
On July 25, Monroe will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of her Grammy-nominated 2015 album The Blade with a one-night-only show at Nashville’s The Basement East, where she will perform the record in its entirety. In August, she’ll be co-headlining a run of shows with Fancy Hagood across Europe and the United Kingdom.
Ashley Monroe 2025 Tour Dates:
July 25 – Nashville, TN – The Basement East (The Blade 10-Year Anniversary Show)
August 21 – Manchester, UK – Band On the Wall *
August 22 – Leicestershire, UK – The Long Road Festival
August 25 – Glasgow, UK – Saint Luke’s *
August 27 – London, UK – Islington Assembly Hall *
August 28 – Amsterdam, NL – Melkweg *
September 19-21 – Bristol, TN – Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion
* with Fancy Hagood
