Brooke Eden Couldnt Find A Perfect Song For Her Wedding, So She Wrote One Herself

August 1, 2023
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Country artist Brooke Eden is hoping to inspire listeners to “live out loud, even if that makes you an outlaw,” with her deeply personal new single.

The singer-songwriter spoke to HuffPost as she unveiled a music video for “All My Life,” off her latest EP, “Outlaw Love,” this week. Eden wrote the ballad for her first dance with now-wife Hilary Hoover at their wedding last fall. The video is a colorful compilation of clips showing the two women at the ceremony on a beach in Mexico.

“Some little girls dream of getting married one day,” Eden told HuffPost. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t see what all the hoopla was about … until I met Hil.”

She went on to note: “I knew I wanted to write a first-dance song that felt like us, without having to mentally change pronouns. I remember kissing her one day and thinking: ‘All my life, I never thought I’d be in love like this. I never thought I’d want to marry someone, and now I get to love her for the rest of my life.’ The title came from there.”

Watch the video for Brooke Eden’s “All My Life”:

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv2QMboZ_Lc?rel=0&enablejsapi=1]

A Florida native, Eden has been a rising star in Nashville, Tennessee, for some time. She released a self-titled debut EP in 2014, followed by “Welcome to the Weekend” two years later.

In 2021, Eden issued a trio of singles ― “No Shade,” “Sunroof” and “Got No Choice” ― that served as a musical reintroduction of sorts, as they were the first songs to represent her truth after coming out publicly as a queer woman. Hoover appeared in the accompanying music videos as her love interest.

Speaking to HuffPost that year, Eden explained that taking time off from touring due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 gave her a renewed sense of artistic purpose. If she was going to return to performing live, she “wanted to do it authentically.”

Hilary Hoover (left) and Brooke Eden were married in 2022.
Hilary Hoover (left) and Brooke Eden were married in 2022.

Frazer Harrison via Getty Images

“That was a big moment for me,” she said at the time. “In country music for so long, you were shunned and pushed away after you came out. But it doesn’t matter what happens after this. If I can’t live my life authentically, none of this matters anyway.”

The four new songs that appear on “Outlaw Love,” released in June, offer a musical snapshot of Eden and Hoover’s yearslong relationship.

“It tells our story, from the hardships when people were telling us we’d never make it to seven years later dancing at our wedding,” Eden told HuffPost this week. “We went through hell to get here, and we know we can get through anything now.”

Ultimately, Eden is hopeful she’ll be able to expand “Outlaw Love” into a full-length album. Whether mainstream listeners will embrace her new music, however, remains to be seen.

“In country music for so long, you were shunned and pushed away after you came out,” Eden (seen here performing in Tennessee) said in 2021.
“In country music for so long, you were shunned and pushed away after you came out,” Eden (seen here performing in Tennessee) said in 2021.

Erika Goldring via Getty Images

Even though Nashville’s roster of openly LGBTQ+ artists continues to grow, the perception of country as a conservative genre has proved tough to shake.

One of country radio’s biggest hits this summer is Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” featuring lyrics that evoke vigilantism and racism. Controversy surrounding the song’s video ― which originally included footage of a Black Lives Matter protest, along with shots filmed at a Tennessee courthouse where a Black teenager was lynched in 1927 ― has only seemed to boost its popularity.

“When there’s forward movement, there’s always regressive backlash,” Eden said. “I think we’re seeing that backlash now. With that being said, we’re still moving forward, and I think that progression is unstoppable. There’s always more love than hate.”

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