Country Up-And-Comer Tenille Townes Starts A Lemonade Stand

The final song on country artist Tenille Townes’ debut album The Lemonade Stand — “The Most Beautiful Things” — posits that people are most touched by the intangible. At the end of the track, the voice of sound engineer Jason Hall’s young daughter Amelia rises out of the shimmer. And just as Townes sings that the most beautiful things in life can’t be seen, it’s possible the same goes for The Lemonade Stand’s most beautiful moment: while Amelia sang, Townes stood by in the studio, tearing at the thought of herself at age seven. 

“The Lemonade Stand is the dream I had when I was a little kid,” Townes says. “That moment for me is the biggest full circle, to hear [Amelia] at the end of this project. I hope people feel reminded of that little kid or dreamer that they used to be, and that they feel they’re not alone.”

Townes’ lemonade stand is a “metaphor for a gathering place, a community,” rooted in innocence and idealism. It is also frequently a child’s first economic venture, testing creations on willing neighbors. And there’s nothing more integral to Townes’ first full-length career venture than this sense of community. Her debut continues the tradition of country music as a storytelling medium. 

Before Covid, Townes’ lemonade stand was the merch table, after a show — the place from which she encountered the stories of strangers. The pandemic removed Townes from her primary site of inspiration and primary site of monetary gain: touring. But even though her scheduled fall tour with Sugarland was cancelled, Townes still seeks to share stories with her community. 

“My favorite place to write from is the observer,” Townes says. She thinks of herself as a witness, finding her own “sense of belonging from a birds-eye view.” Her voice often enters a song from a birds-eye view, as well — she is not afraid to sing quietly and access vulnerable spots of her falsetto, if it serves the storytelling. 

A moment of witness led to “Somebody’s Daughter,” a song from Townes’ first EP that put her on mainstream country’s radar. The track swept the 2019 Canadian Country Music Awards, winning Single, Song, and Video of the year. It was her first song promoted in the U.S., and reached the top 30 of both the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. 

Inspiration struck upon exiting the interstate while on a drive with her mom two years ago, when Townes saw a girl with a small cardboard sign, asking for help. Townes and her mother considered what the young girl’s name might be, and imagine the girl’s possible history and relationships. “Somebody’s Daughter” is the penultimate track on “The Lemonade Stand,” but it encapsulates the album’s concept. As Townes sings of the girl’s possible pasts, she imagines her “countin’ change at the lemonade stand.” After waving at the girl, Townes sings: “Well, no one’s gonna ask what she wants to be, Or why we’re both stuck here at the mercy of geography, And whether it shines or rains.” 

Throughout the album, Townes uses story to interrogate these nebulous, spiritual questions about religion and fate. In “Jersey on the Wall (I’m Just Asking)” Townes considers the nonsensical nature of death. The song was inspired by her trip to a high school in New Brunswick, which had just experienced the loss of a star student in a car crash. When she returned to the school months later to attend their graduation ceremony, the student’s basketball jersey was exhibited on the wall. The chorus asks: “How do you keep this big rock spinnin’? And why can’t you stop a car from crashin’?” Later, in “When I Meet My Maker,” Townes takes comfort in the notion that her difficult questions will be answered in afterlife. She says there’s “healing in this honest and raw conversation,” and her particular brand of faith is “about being able to have these hard conversations.” 

Healing is Townes’ ultimate hope for the record. Although she won’t be filling the tanks of her tour bus, a strong showing will give her the boost she needs to do so in a post-Covid world. In the meantime, she hopes the record will “put a little hope into people’s tanks” and help them heal during a difficult time.