Nicolle Galyon and Lori McKenna Pen Theme For ‘Living with Landyn’
We love 'all the things' about this new song!
When it comes to creating a thoughtful, homemade gift guaranteed to touch the heart of a friend, songwriters have a creative edge over the rest of us. They can write a song. And that’s just what hit songwriters Nicolle Galyon and Lori McKenna did when they wrote “All The Things” for Landyn Hutchinson. The song, sung by Galyon, has now become the theme song for the lifestyle guru’s popular podcast, “Living with Landyn.”
“All The Things” is an upbeat anthem that’s a perfect compliment to Hutchinson’s sunny personality and positive content. Recorded at her Nashville home, “Living with Landyn” tackles a variety of topics including marriage, children, fashion and décor, targeting women of all ages. “We are all the same, just with different colored hair. And we are better together,” Hutchinson shares in the first episode where she also chronicles how the podcast evolved from an Instagram story in 2014. In addition to the podcast, Hutchinson opened a Living with Landyn store in Nashville in 2019 and is also a sought after speaker, who has been featured at such national events as the Women’s PGA Luncheon.
As Hutchinson’s reputation as an influencer has grown, Galyon has been cheering her friend along on every step of the journey. Hutchinson is grateful for the support, particularly for her new theme song. After all, how many people can say their theme was written by two of the most awarded songwriters in contemporary music? Galyon is BMI’s reigning Songwriter of the Year and has six No. 1 hits to her credit, among them Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic” and Dan + Shay’s “Tequila.” In 2019, she launched the female focused record label Songs & Daughters. McKenna won the “Best Country Song” Grammy for Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” in 2015 and Tim McGraw’s “Humble & Kind” in 2016. Those two huge hits also made McKenna the first female songwriter to win back-to-back CMA Song of the Year awards. She has a new album, The Balladeer, arriving in July.
In a spirited phone conversation with Sounds Like Nashville, Galyon and Hutchinson talk about their friendship, how they are surviving the quarantine and what it means to be “ambition twins.”
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SLN: How did you two meet?
NG: We met at a Titans game. If that’s not Nashville I don’t know what is? It was nine years ago. The first time we ever met each other was in the Titans suite, but we became friends after a workout in a church parking lot. We had our first conversation and it just escalated pretty quickly. It went really deep really fast. I’ve said this multiple times that I pride myself on having friends that are all different from each other and they are different from me, but when I met Landyn, I felt like I’d met my ambition twin. I felt like I’d met the person who actually operated and went after life in a similar fashion that I did.
LH: We had that conversation in the parking lot and I’m a good 10 years older than Nicolle, but we met on eye level there on so many things. We have a very similar upbringing, a similar family dynamic and our beliefs, our marriages, our parenting and a lot of our work ethic is just a mirror image of one another in so many ways. I just felt this deep connection and I’ve never felt connected to someone like that before. She is one of my dearest friends and someone I respect so much.
SLN: How did the song come about?
NG: I called Lori, and this was before Landyn had a podcast, but the writing was on the wall that her empire was going to need a song at some point. Landyn is the hardest person to buy a gift for because her job is to tell everyone else in America what to give for a gift. So I said, ‘This would be a really fun thing to just surprise her. Let’s not tell her what we’re going to do, just come over to my house one night.’ What I love about this is it was a labor of love. It wasn’t like anybody trying to make a dollar or trying to get a song on the radio. Lori and I just love and respect Landyn and thought it would be a really fun thing to surprise her with a song. So she came over to my house. It was in November of 2018. We just got a bottle of wine, lit a fire and sat in my living room. It was the easiest song to write. We just tried to write a song that felt like what it feels like when you go to Landyn’s Instagram page, which is just light and fun and positive and uplifting. We had no idea in November 2018 how much we would need just a whimsical fun song to listen to in 2020, but it turned out we really need it right now.
SLN: What did you think the first time you heard “All The Things?”
LH: I just cried and listened to it over and over and over. It was so perfect, so perfect. It was everything that I believe in and everything that I hear from these women. It’s one of those songs you just keep humming after you hear it and it’s very catchy. It feels good. I just couldn’t be more proud and blessed. I can’t believe as talented as Lori and Nicolle are that I am reaping the benefits of their artistry, how beautifully they write, how they captured what I’m about and what these women feel about me and the relationship that we’ve built.
SLN: The song is indeed a really cool celebration of the community you’ve built with your audience through social media and now the podcast. How did you start your brand?
LH: For years women would stop me and ask, ‘Where did you get your shirt?’ and I’m definitely the woman in the grocery store that will turn around and show you the tag in the back of my shirt and tell exactly where I got it. If I can help you, I will.I had neighbors asking, ‘You brought that appetizer, would you mind sharing the recipe?’ and ‘What paint color is your living room?’ People were constantly asking me things. I wasn’t deep into social media and I’d never read a blog before. I just always love sharing and helping. It’s just my nature and calling. I really love women and I want them to feel confident. I want them to love themselves and their homes and take care of their husbands and children and be a good friend and be a good wife. So I just started kind of telling them how I think about things and what kind of choices I would make, and it just went from there. What I’m the most proud of is, I did it all on my own, and also to do something like this at my age. When this really started taking off, I was 38 or 39-years-old and a stay at home mom. The fact that I can share and build a community like this and reach that many women across the country is really something special. I don’t take that for granted and I don’t take this platform for granted. I know how lucky I am to have a voice in this world and I just keep trying to put the good out there.
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SLN: Nicolle, what’s the best advice that Landyn has ever given you?
NG: An interesting little piece of trivia that connects me, Landyn and Lori is all of our careers started after we had kids. Her kids are a little older than mine and I remember she said one time, ‘Just be the person they want to come to, that they would want to come talk to, just be that person.’ And I’ve tried to be that person. That has guided me more than ever now that we are in quarantine because I don’t know as a home school teacher that I’m somebody my daughter would want to come talk to right now. I’ve held onto that: “Just be the person that your kids would want to come talk to and don’t lose that.”
SLN: How are you coping with the home schooling? Have any pandemic tips for the ladies who read this?
LH: We are surviving right now. My kids they are older than Nicolle’s. I don’t really envy her situation in that it’s a little more hands on. My kids are kind of self-sufficient. They are doing it and the school has done a really good job, so we’re doing good. I think what I’m enjoying the most about the home schooling thing is just having maybe the hours that they would have been in school and just the gift of time right now, but it is a little tricky for the younger ones like Nicolle has.
NG: I don’t have any advice. I don’t know if I’m going to Weight Watchers or AA first on the other side of this. I don’t know whether I’m getting a divorce or checking into a mental institution. (laughs mischievously)
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SLN: How old are your kids?
LH: Lily will be 16 in August, so I’m going to have a driver, which is crazy and then Luke is 13. So I have teenagers.
NG: Mine are five and six, girl first and then a boy.
SLN: What fun activity have you done with your family during this time?
NG: We’re in Kansas. We have a second home in my hometown out here in literally the middle of nowhere. Rodney, my husband, actually brought all of his family’s farm equipment. He had it shipped up here and so he’s literally been farming and teaching my kids how to hunt turkey. They’ve each killed a turkey for the first time. They are catching frogs. They’ve each learned how to cast and catch a fish and they’ve been on tractors like two or three times a week. I should just quit home schooling because they can just live off the land at this point. They’ve learned so many things that they would have never learned. My daughter took her training wheels off her bike yesterday and they are both having birthdays in quarantine. I feel like so much is happening even though we are all locked down.
LH: I see a lot of growth in my kids and I’m with Nicolle as far as I think this is a time for life skills. I have one that’s about to leave the nest in a couple of years. I just think about that and I keep going, ‘Have I set her up for everything she needs from me? Does she know how to do this?’ She loves to cook and bake and things, so I’ve really kind of handed it over to them in so many ways. They’ve always had to put their laundry away and things like that, so we definitely have rules and we’re still staying on a schedule in that way and they have responsibilities, but we’ve been doing just a lot of like quality time stuff together. I feel like I’ve been going 100 mph, so just the hours and the gift of time has been so important. We have a garden, so we’re big into that. We actually just got baby chicks and we’re putting a chicken coop in, so we’re living off the land too. We’ve turned our backyard into a farm. We’re getting some bees. We’re teaching them to get their hands in the dirt. It’s been fun. We’re all enjoying it.
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SLN: With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, what are your plans for celebrating Mother’s Day?
NG: My plan is to not plan anything. I feel like I’m running Grand Central Station—trying to plan ZOOM play dates for my kids and all the ZOOM home school and all the ZOOM for work and all the meals. I don’t want to plan anything. In fact I would kind of like it if everyone would disappear on Sunday. That sounds terrible. (laughs) I want alcohol and a good sunset.
LH: Every day is Mother’s Day. I feel like I’m always mothering. Just give me a day off. I don’t know where I’m going to go is the problem. Any mother who reads this is going to be like, “Amen!” I’d like to have a nice glass of wine by the fire at night.
SLN: Any advice for people looking for a gift for their mom?
NG: Landyn has gift advice on her website. She has links that actually help people.
LH: I got my mom these awesome Glow Drops that I told Nicolle about. They are like this little drop you put on after your moisturizer, which I’m obsessed with. We could all could use a little glow, and I actually bought my mom a chicken coop. I sent it to her house as a surprise. They live on a bunch of property and they have a tree farm. Mom has been talking to me about my chickens and I’m like, ‘You really should do it. What else are you doing? All the kids are grown and gone, go get yourself some chickens.’ I’m wanting everyone to get chickens these days.
SLN: Landyn, what’s been the advice you’ve shared that has gotten the most reaction from your audience?
LH: It’s a way to clean your jewelry. You already have all the ingredients under your sink. I buy a little glass dish with a lid on it and I pour some Windex in there and then I drop a dish soap and I microwave it without the lid. Then I pull it out carefully and I drop my rings in there, my earrings and all that kind of stuff. You can let it soak for five minutes or you can let it soak overnight, and then I take a soft toothbrush and I give it a little scrub. I call it Bling Wash and it took off like wildfire. You just put the lid back on when it cools and keep it under your sink. It’s amazing the crud that is sitting on the bottom that comes out of your ring. People love it.
SLN: What do you think is attracting people to “Living with Landyn?”
LH: Women that are here are here because they want to be. They are like-minded and they can relate to the things that I’m saying. That’s my hope and dream for the whole thing is that it continues to be a place that they enjoy and get inspired from and they can relate to it. At the end of the day, I just want women to be happy.
