Runaway June Reveals Heartbreaking Inspiration Behind ‘Blue Roses’ Title Track

Runaway June will release their debut album, Blue Roses, on June 28. The album was named after the title track, co-written by Naomi Cooke and Jennifer Wayne, along with Marcus Hummon and Caroline Cutbirth, and inspired by losses that all three band members have experienced.

“The title is a title track that’s on the record,” Cooke shared recently with PopCulture.com and other media. “It really just kind of made sense for us to name the album Blue Roses after the song, because it’s one of our favorite songs that we’ve ever written in the duration of this band and it’s a really personal song for all of us. All of us have lost people that we love. My brother was killed in a car accident a few years ago, and I wrote that song with him in my heart.

“It’s a song that really, really connects us with our audience,” she continued. “It makes everyone feel like we’re in a living room whenever we play it, doesn’t matter where. It was just kind of unanimous that that was the name of the album that everyone can go straight to it.”

Not all the songs on Blue Roses are about loss, of course. The trio, which also includes Hannah Mulholland, is currently enjoying their first time in the Top 20 with their current single, “Buy My Own Drinks,” which also marks the first time an all-female country band landed so high on the charts since 2005.

“That was the first time we’d all been in the room together,” Wayne previously told PopCulture.com of the trio members writing the song with Josh Kear and Hillary Lindsey. “So you never quite know how it’s going to go. But Josh came in with the title and he was like, ‘I’ve had this title bouncing around and I don’t really know what it could be yet.’ So he threw out ‘Buy My Own Drinks,’ and of course having four other girls in the room we were like, ‘Yes, we want to write that.’

“We were pretty careful when we were writing it because we wanted it to be really empowering but we wanted it to be inclusive of everybody where it’s like, she’s just on her own self-love journey,” she continued. “She doesn’t need her friends, she doesn’t need a guy, she doesn’t need anybody, she’s just happy being herself. And I think that’s something that hopefully a lot of people can relate to at some point, finally getting comfortable in your own skin.”

Runaway June is currently joining Maddie & Tae in serving as the opening act on Carrie Underwood‘s Cry Pretty Tour 360. Find dates, and pre-order Blue Roses, at RunawayJune.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/ Steve Jennings