Just Say Yes (Sun) takes its title from a message Ruthie Foster scribbled on a sticky note while she was caring for her ailing mother. It was a simple reminder to remain open to whatever comes next. The Austin-based singer/songwriter’s abrupt break from music couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time. Her 2024 LP, Mileage, had just won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
And there would be more disruption. A knee injury required surgery, and Foster was also navigating the end of a relationship. All of which pretty much guaranteed that Just Say Yes would be an album rooted in a profound period of change, for better or worse. Shortly before her getting her knee repaired, Foster tracked the LP over a single week in Nashville. She returned to Crosstie Recordings, the studio where she worked on Mileage with producer Tyler Bryant and his wife, Rebecca Lovell (Larkin Poe), both Grammy winners themselves. Larkin Poe sibling Megan Lovell has also been absorbed into Foster’s extended musical family, along with her husband, Grammy-nominated guitarist Mike Seal.
Foster takes us through Just Say Yes a song at a time.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Yes”
“I remember telling Rebecca about that sticky note when we were writing, and Tyler basically said, ‘Well, there’s your lyric.’ I think we started with the chorus, and it just kept growing from there into another kind of affirmation song. Saying yes to conversation, connection, love, intimacy and even uncertainty. You don’t always have to know exactly where something is going to lead. Sometimes you simply have to answer the door.”
2) “Come On Up”
“This was another song already sitting there waiting for me to put my own take on it. Megan and Rebecca had a hand in it, along with Tyler—and I connected with it immediately. I love the gospel feeling of the song, especially those choir-like voices in the background. From the moment it begins with, ‘Back when I was younger,’ it feels like the start of something timeless to me. That line opens the door to memory and testimony. It lets you know that somebody is about to tell you what they’ve lived through and what they’ve learned along the way. To me, it’s sort of a call to the front. If you know you’ve been hurt, crucified in some way, pushed aside or maybe even forgotten, come on up. We see you. We recognize what you’ve been through, and you don’t have to stand back there by yourself anymore. I’m here for you.”
3) “Hold On”
“‘Hold On’ was brought to me during the making of the album. What first drew me to the song was its rhythm. I’d never really recorded anything with that feel before. It reminded me of the old gospel quartets I grew up hearing—the way the rhythm keeps pressing forward while the voices carry the message. Even the language has that gospel quality to it. I love that it uses a word like ‘falter.’ You don’t hear that word every day, but you certainly hear it in the gospel world. Tyler and I were listening to the chorus, and I told him it needed a phrase like ‘Mama said’—something simple that would make it feel even more rooted in that old gospel tradition. Tyler jumped into the vocal booth and added it. That little moment helped complete the song for me.”
4) “Thank You”
“Another one of those songs Tyler and Rebecca already had mostly worked out. When they first played it for me, I thought, ‘Yeah, this says what I’ve been needing to say for a while.’ Because I write a lot of positive, self-affirming songs, some people may assume I don’t have my share of problems or difficult people in my life. But I do, just like everybody else. ‘Thank You’ gets right at that. The song is a little cheeky. It expresses real gratitude for the people who’ve stood beside me, but it also thanks what I call the ‘hater motivators’—the people who weren’t as supportive as I thought they’d be. Instead of carrying resentment, I can use that energy as fuel.”
5) “Take Time”
“My mother used to remind me that progress doesn’t always arrive in one big leap. Sometimes you have to humble yourself and take on a small job, make a little piece of pay and keep building from there. ‘Take Time’ is about honoring those small steps. It’s also a reminder to breathe, watch the sun go down and notice your own life while you’re busy trying to improve it. Time is the one thing none of us can get back.”
6) “Doubling Back”
“It’s what happens when your head has left but your heart hasn’t gotten the message. You can be halfway out the door, pedal to the floor, swearing you’re finally done—and then find yourself making a U-turn. I’ve definitely been in that situation a few times … maybe more than a few times. Sometimes we return because we believe something has changed. Sometimes we return because we haven’t changed yet. Either way, you leave the porch light on. And how many times do I get a chance to use ‘hullabaloo’ in a song? That’s priceless.”
7) “Tangled Up”
“Tyler and I wrote this after a difficult conversation. He made soup, we sat down, and the song began to come out. I didn’t know how badly I needed that moment of comfort. When he went for that massive guitar riff, it was exactly what the song needed. The sound had to match where I was emotionally and what those lyrics were saying. I wasn’t necessarily getting closer to knowing what I wanted. I was getting closer to knowing what I didn’t want. There’s a difference. Sometimes that’s where freedom starts.”
8) “Sitting Still”
“I was usually moving, touring, working, solving something or heading toward the next thing. Then my knee injury and surgery forced me to slow down. I was sitting still a lot—and, honestly, I didn’t always feel like I was in the right place. Being still helped ground me. It reminded me that quiet isn’t necessarily an empty place. Sometimes it’s the only place where you can finally hear yourself. I don’t think we originally wrote this one on piano—I think it started on guitar. But during a break in the studio, I walked over to the piano and thought, ‘I could probably play this.’ The part was fairly simple, but there was something about the simplicity of the piano that served the message of the song. Playing piano also brings something different out of my voice. People used to say that about Aretha Franklin—that sitting at the piano put her voice in a different place. I love holding a guitar, but I like what the piano brings out of my singing, too.”
9) “Maybe It Up”
“This is the album loosening its collar and having a little fun. ‘Maybe It Up’ is about attraction, possibility and that playful moment when two people are looking at each other and wondering what might happen next. We wanted to play around with this one and flirt a little bit. It’s lighter than some of the songs on the album. There’s no grand promise attached to it—it’s just plain grown-ass woman flirtation. One thing I remember is Tyler bringing in this old harmonica-style microphone and putting it alongside the vocal mic I was singing through. It gave part of my vocal this warped, distorted sound and added another bit of character to it.”
10) “Reachin’”
“We spend a lot of time pretending we can carry everything alone. But sometimes strength is simply being willing to knock on the door. And the important part is that reaching has to work both ways. If I reach out, will you reach back? After all these songs about change, struggle and looking for connection, ‘Reachin’’ leaves us with hope that the lost can still be found. I think it’s a great way to end the album. I hope everyone else agrees.”
See Ruthie Foster live.
