When the news of Nashville star Hayden Panettiere’s death broke last week, I was extremely sad but to say I was shocked would unfortunately be a lie. The exact circumstances remain unclear but it was well known that Hayden had been struggling for years with addiction and horrific turmoil in her personal life. It’s depressing to me how inevitable her death was, how certain kinds of fame and particularly child stardom feel like a lingering curse leading to suffering, addiction and early death for far too many.
What her death also offered was a chance to reflect on the influence that Hayden had in my own life. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Highway Queens would not have started without her. In fact you’d have to say I probably wouldn’t have even started listening to mainstream country music without her either, which may sound strange but it is the truth.
This story began with her TV show Heroes which I loved and watched obsessively (the first season especially). Hayden’s character was a kick-ass teenage firecracker in the Buffy tradition – which was then (and still is) my favourite show of all time. When that show fizzled out I still kept track of Hayden and was intrigued by the premise of her new show called Nashville launched in 2012. I had at this point extremely limited knowledge of modern country music, being an indie rock fan from Scotland. I liked alt-country but my understanding of the mainstream industry and of the city itself was almost zero.
By the end of the first episode of ‘Nashville’ I was hooked. All thanks to Hayden’s dazzling performance as Juliette Barnes. Somehow the way she played a mainstream country pop star trying to make something of herself despite her chaotic childhood, while also trying desperately to find an authentic voice for herself in the cog of the music industry machine gave heart and soul to a character that might have otherwise been a one-dimensional back-stabbing, career hungry bitch. The fragility and depth of Hayden’s performances gained her a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for this first series.
But for me it was her vocals which were the revelation. Hayden, singing as Juliette, was the best singer on the show by a mile. The other lead, Connie Britton, had clearly been cast for her acting as her singing on the show always felt the weakest part of her performance.
In contrast Hayden’s emotional and gutsy singing brought her character roaring to life on the screen. She sounded like a star. Her ballad singing was the real deal, full of pain and personality.
The first of Hayden’s songs to hook me was ‘Undermine’ which was used in an episode which showed Juliette in a Nashville writing session with Deacon, the underrated stalwart musician character in the show. I put that song in my ‘Reflections on a Decade of Music Listening’ playlist a few years back, since it was such a favourite of mine and it was the first song I heard written by Kacey Musgraves, leading me to a whole string of songwriters and artists like Ashley Monroe and Miranda Lambert. All my previous judgements about country music being corny songs about tractors, line dancing and beer were overthrown – this was a genre that had fun, feisty female singers with grit and guts, mirroring the fictional world on screen.
Another couple of Hayden’s performances really stood out for me, and show what a true talent she was. The first song I immediately went back on hearing the news of her death was ‘We Are Water’ written by Patty Griffin. This beautiful song explores the idea of fate and how hard it is to control the power of emotions. ‘Sometimes I’m drowning in all the things that I feel.’ The song ends with the narrator swimming in the deep blue sea, having left no footprint behind on the beach, a commentary on the transient nature of life and the pull of oblivion. Hayden sang the song in an episode dealing with the impact of addiction, in an eerie premonition of her own future.
Another key song of the series was widely shared this week too, the stunning ‘Nothing in the World Will Ever Break My Heart Again’ which was a gut-wrenching, haunting performance especially knowing how her story ends. This is the one song worth listening to if you have any doubt about the strength of Hayden’s vocal talent.
It was very upsetting to read in her memoir that Hayden’s memories of filming Nashville were tainted with trauma after the writers started using her own life as inspiration for the storylines. As things unraveled offscreen she was under contract to perform her pain again on screen and in the vocal booth. They made her act out losing her daughter, falling into addiction, suicide attempts, being dragged down by nefarious influences. The only thing they spared her was an on-screen death (that fate given to her co-star Connie Britton).
In the end the show Nashville jumped the shark badly, falling off so quickly for me after the first couple of seasons. Once T Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller no longer were in charge of the song choices the music quality dipped too. After that I kept watching only for Hayden’s character. The happy ending of her character quitting music, getting back together with her ex to raise her daughter together felt as far fetched as all the extreme soap opera drama which came before it.
Despite my own personal misgivings about the ‘Nashville Live’ touring concept, it always felt like a sad missed opportunity to me that Hayden never performed on these tours due to her stage fright. Not that touring has ever been a particularly stabilising experience for addicts, though but you wonder if she’d been able to branch out beyond acting if there had been an alternative ending to her story.
But how does anyone change their fate once they become an addict? Anyone can be pulled under, regardless of talent, beauty, fame, success, especially if there’s people who want to drown you in the whirlpool.
Hayden Panettiere sang her songs like she’d lived them, like the best country singers do. It’s utterly devastating for her family, and daughter, that her story has ended this way. The show Nashville is tainted to me now but I will always be grateful to Hayden for her performances and for opening my heart to the genre and the city itself.
Highway Queens 
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