Singer-songwriter Mason Ashley releases new single “Show and Tell” along with the music video today on TMI.
Show and Tell is a song that everyone can relate to at some point of their lives. Mason says the song is inspired by “the emotion of trying to pick up the pieces of yourself after someone else tore you apart. It is about trying to convince yourself, and everyone else, that you’re “fine”. Show and Tell is based on that moment in between getting your heart broken and getting yourself back together again.”
Writing well beyond her years, Mason Ashley masterfully crafts lyrics that tell timeless stories, melodies that capture raw emotion, and sings with an enchanting voice that lulls the listener to another time and place. Instead of trying to categorize her unique sound into specific genres, Mason describes her sound as “what she feels like writing, what she is feeling in the moment, and what she feels is honest.” Her music is her own journal of her life, just with melodies. The result; songs that anyone of any age who has ever felt love, loss, frustration, joy, romance can relate to.
“Music has always been a part of me. I’ve been writing songs since I was nine years old and decided to learn guitar after attempting to teach myself chords on my grandpa’s old Conn until I couldn’t feel my fingers. I got my first guitar for my 10th birthday and the rest is history.” Growing up, Mason was greatly influenced by the music her parents listened to including early John Mayer, Matchbox 20, and Maroon 5. She later became infatuated with Bob Dylan’s writing style that went on to open up a whole new realm of songwriting for her.
Mason began to pour her heart and her pre-teen hurts, desires, wishes, angers into journals. She filled journal after journal with lyrics and melodies. She, her guitar, her pencil, and her journals could be found strewn across her bedroom floor most hours of the day. The pencil, paper, guitar, and her own voice gave her a venue to express herself and then move on. Her songwriting process truly has no pattern or order. “Like most things in my life, it’s pretty messy, but really the songs I end up loving are the ones that come out of nowhere from a moment of inspiration. I’ll get ideas in the car, in line for coffee, in the grocery store… I like the random, mysterious inspiration.”
Her goal as a musician is to never stop learning. To always push herself and never let her career be something that she does because it becomes routine. When she was younger, she would ask for a different instrument every year for birthday. She wants to always have that mentality of her younger self that felt excited for a new challenge.
“My music is for that nine year old girl on her bedroom floor writing way too many songs in the key of G. It’s for the thirteen year old that thought she knew what love was. For the beautiful moments that you wish could last for more than just a moment. Finding out that loss is hard and that some ends will forever be loose ends. For the realization that relationships can be tricky and confusing and inconsistent and sometimes you like it that way. Above all, it’s for those nights of just hoping that someone will stay and believing that if they do, you can dance yourself into the song. But even if they don’t stay, you can still write an album about it.”
