Nashville songwriter and producer Kyle Ryan has shared ‘Cool’, the title track from the new Junior Pro album, out September 18 via Easy Does It Records.

Ryan has spent much of the past two decades working behind the scenes, writing and producing for artists including Natalie Prass, Dr. Dog, Molly Tuttle and Liza Anne, as well as touring for years with Kacey Musgraves as her musical director. Junior Pro gives them somewhere to put the stranger ideas that might not have fitted quite so easily elsewhere.

‘Cool’ began with something much smaller: an apology to Ryan’s dog, Merle.

“This song, written in the universal language of music, is an apology to my dog Merle,” Ryan explains. “When you step on their tiny little foot or something and they look at you with those trusting, confused eyes. ‘Why? How could you?’ Maybe it has a few human parallels in my life. This was a tough one. I re-recorded it four times.”

That small domestic moment gives the song its starting point, though Ryan leaves enough room for it to mean something beyond the dog. The recording itself is light on its feet, with the sort of melodic detail you might expect from somebody who has spent years moving between other people’s records.