“I always say one thing feeds another, and if I don’t get time in the saddle I feel like my ideas aren’t as good… It’s what makes my music mean anything.“
-Jenna Paulette
Have you ever felt like a song understands you? Like that song was written about your life? For Jenna Paulette, “Wide Open Spaces” was that song for her as a young girl. I sat down with Jenna before her show with Aaron Watson in Columbus, Ohio where we talked farm girl to cowgirl about life in agriculture with all its rewards and challenges. Time in the saddle allows Jenna to create music about these raw experiences. It grounds her and allows her to live a life that will leave the world better than she found it.
Growing Up On The Ranch
Jenna grew up in Texas and cattle ranching with her family in Oklahoma. “Ranching was my way of falling in love with country music to begin with. I would be checking cows with my granddad, all those good old country songs were playing in his truck like George Strait’s greatest hits album,” shares Jenna. She remembers looking out of the truck and seeing everything the Dixie Chicks were singing about in “Wide Open Spaces”. She and her sister would go out checking cattle and sing that song while on the back of the 4-wheeler. From experiencing a connection between her life and the country music she was listening to, Jenna knew she wanted to make other people feel that way. “The way that ‘Wide Open Spaces’ made me feel and being able to sing it in the middle of wide open spaces doing what I love was very tangible to me and made me want to sing country music, and connect the dots between agriculture and singing about that lifestyle; It was never separated for me,” says Jenna.
Getting Back To The Girl She Was
Jenna’s debut album, The Girl I Was, encompasses who Jenna is and the experiences she wants to share. The single became Jenna’s personal anthem and set the stage for the entire album. Jenna told me more about the story behind this song, how she had gotten out of a bad relationship that stripped her identity, and she wasn’t able to be who God made her to be in that scenario. Jenna remembers getting out of the relationship and feeling free to be herself again. She remembers looking at this picture of herself as a little girl, helping sell her uncle’s cattle, and how she felt that day. The way she remembers feeling in that picture while helping sell cows, made her feel like herself and want to get back to the girl she was. “We wrote that song and it became an anthem for me every night. I pray it over myself and over everybody out there who might have lost themselves in the scheme of life because everybody does at some point. It’s so fun to sing and really grounds me every time I’m anywhere that’s not home. It reminds me of exactly who I am and who I always want to keep in my sight,” says Jenna.
“The hard days of ranching and farming suck in the middle of them, but at the end of it when I’m washing the dirt out of my braid and off my hands, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.”
-Jenna Paulette
You Ain’t No Cowboy
Jenna and her partner Ross, have seen the struggles and loneliness in ranching firsthand. For the “You Ain’t No Cowboy” music video, Ross wanted to tell his story and the bigger story of mental health in agriculture. Part of his story is sobriety, having been sober for more than five years now. The music video portrays this struggle and the “image of the cowboy”. “Most of the cowboys I knew were good men of great character and they could get the job done too. It was all of those things that made them a cowboy in my mind. Hollywood and culture make the cowboy out to be something different, that doesn’t so much have the great character. So, we wanted to tell that side of the story, that it’s a lot to live up to living under the cowboy hat and this way of life. It’s good men who show up when they say they will and do what needs to get done until the job’s done,” shares Jenna.
The other part she and Ross wanted to tell is that so much of what farmers do is completely dependent on things they can’t control such as the weather and health of the livestock. It’s devastating when the loss hits, sometimes it’s one thing after another and it’s hard to deal with the loss. Then you add the generational aspect of it – wanting to continue the farm, but the challenges make it difficult and there is a lot of pressure. “We wanted to show all of the aspects of those things and I believe the cowboy is America’s hero… and even the toughest men can be vulnerable, and that’s actually a strength and not a weakness,” says Jenna.
Thoughts From The Saddle
While Jenna does get tired between being on the road playing shows and traveling back to the ranch to work, she wouldn’t miss it for the world. “I always say one thing feeds another, and if I don’t get time in the saddle I feel like my ideas aren’t as good… It’s what makes my music mean anything. I’m so grateful that I get time in the middle of nowhere to actually process and think, and not have a phone in front of my face at all times. I’ve always been of the mindset that if I’m going to do anything, I want to do it excellently, so music and cowboying. On top of all of that, if it’s not bringing salt and good seasoning to the world then what’s the point?”
‘Thoughts From the Saddle” are these little nuggets Jenna thinks about while spending time in the saddle, like her best friend coming to visit and saying, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Jenna thought about that for days and it led to more thoughts she started writing down. Jenna films from her perspective in the saddle to show people what she gets to see every day out there as far as the landscapes and being on horseback. She hopes that sharing those thoughts brings out the good in the world.
“If you’re going to do something with your life, I would hope that it would shape culture in the best way I can and that I leave the world better than I found it.“
– Jenna Paulette
Even though Jenna and I come from different parts of the country and live different lives, country music and agriculture are part of who we are and I admire how Jenna shares her life on the ranch through her music and crafts impactful lyrics that many of us can find meaning and comfort in. “All those moments that I get to spend by myself make me a better songwriter and a better person, and I’d rather be a good person than be well-known anyway, but it comes with the territory of wanting to be a singer, so I hope those things balance each other out. This gift of being out in the middle of nowhere has kept me grounded and I pray it always does,” says Jenna.
He Calls Her Darlin’
Between life on the road and life in the saddle, Jenna shows no sign of slowing down. She is celebrating the signing of her record deal with Leo33 Music and her next single, “Darlin” will be released on March 1. I can’t wait to see all Jenna does this year for country music and representing cowgirls. Follow Jenna @jennapaulette on Instagram and YouTube, and visit jennapaulette.com.
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Farm Girl With Curls 