Lady Like

Hailing from rural Colorado, Ingrid Andress grew up in a Western culture where she wore jeans rather than a dress, drank her tequila straight, and let curse words fly. When she arrived in Nashville, Andress was met with disapproval from some of her male peers for the way she carried herself as a woman. Here, she re-appropriates the titular phrase, redefining it on her own terms. Rather than embracing the stereotypes that suppress women, Andress details all the unconventional ways she is like a lady, such as not brushing her hair in days and kissing the guy on the first date if she feels like it. She even warns men she "could bring you to your knees and get you kicked out of the garden of Eden." Andress explained to Wonderland: "I wrote 'Lady Like' to remind myself and others that you don't have to apologize for who you are. I hope we can work together to move past gender stereotypes so people can feel free to be who they are just as they are."

Andress recalled to Taste of Country the "constant commentary" she received from her male friends about her unfeminine outfits (she doesn't even own a dress) when she first moved to town in 2014. "A majority of the people in the music industry, at least in the writing world in Nashville, are men," she noted. "I feel like there was a lot of frustration silently circulating between women in this genre." "I feel like the industry, at least in country music, had the certain label as to what a female artist should be," Andress continued. "I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I also knew that I did not want to follow any of those rules."

One of the outdated ways of measuring ladylike behavior Andress subverts in this song is bringing up politics in a conversation. Sometimes I forget not to talk 'bout politics When I'm in the middle of me gettin' hit on "I mean, that really happened to me... I thought I was being super-impressive to this guy I was trying to flirt with, and I was just like, 'I'm so educated and informed. How attractive am I?'" Andress remembered to The Boot. "But this guy was just like, 'Yeah, I don't really like talking about that stuff.' I'm like, 'Oh, okay, well, I'm leaving.'"