Kacey Musgraves, country music’s new real deal

Hold the poetry

A song begins whenever a phrase pops into her head, lands on her ear or, best case scenario, jumps out of her mouth.

Country music's women's movement

Chris Richards

Kasey Musgraves soon-to-be-released album is one in a cascade of hotly anticipated albums expected from female country singers this year.

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“I just want [my lyrics] to sound like something I’d say in a conversation,” she says. “And once you have lyrics, you know what kind of music should go with that vibe. You have a snowball you can pack around.”

Good metaphor. A Kacey Musgraves song is clean, simple, compact. Throw it at someone and you’ll certainly get their attention, maybe even hurt them, but not too bad.

“And don’t make it poetic,” Musgraves says. “It’s the John Prine school of songwriting. Literally just [really] say how it is. And it wins every time. Too many people focus on writing what they think they should write, what should be in a song, what radio would want. [Forget] that, that’s so boring.”

And while “Same Trailer, Different Park” is particularly even-keeled, it’s never boring. Co-written with some of Nashville’s shiniest songwriters — Shane McAnally, Luke Laird and Brandy Clark among them— it’s an album inspired by the massive gravity of tiny home towns, the disorienting letdowns of growing up and Musgraves’s split with her punk-rocker boyfriend of five-plus years last August. Musgraves sings about all of these things with contemplative restraint. Especially love and fallout.

“I’m just so over the angry . . . scorned female perspective,” she says. “And it seems like that’s the only option for females today in country. ‘You did me wrong and now I’m gonna burn your house down!’ I have no way to relate to that. Of course I get angry, but I want to use my brain a little bit and not just smash things.”

She’s talking about the type of song that helped make Lambert, one of Musgraves’s heroes, one of today’s biggest country stars.

Irony: Lambert’s current single, “Mama’s Broken Heart,” a ditty that connects heartbreak with arson, was co-written by Musgraves.

More irony: Lambert’s early singles were once deemed too wild for risk-allergic radio rotations. Now, after years of following in Lambert’s footsteps, Musgraves is fighting that battle anew.

She says she’s been urging the label brass at Mercury Nashville to release “Follow Your Arrow” as her next single. And they should. It’s a euphoric affirmation anthem about ignoring the conformist hordes and trusting your gut (which is fitting). It’s also Musgraves’s most gripping combination of message and melody. But its refrain mentions marijuana smoke and same-sex smooching, which means that stuffier radio programmers won’t go near it.

Still, Musgraves says she’s leaning hard, reprising the argument she made while stumping for “Merry Go Round” as her first single: “‘Let’s create the new normal!’”

That’s certainly a goal worth raising her voice for, but the potential result is exactly what makes Musgraves’s eyes well up with anxiety.

“I don’t mean to be [complaining]. Obviously, there is happiness in commercial success,” she says. “But people get attached to you and who they think you are. And if you do something that throws them for a loop, well, then you’re the bad guy.”

For a songwriter hoping to enjoy a long career of loop-throwing, these thoughts can overwhelm.

“It’s like poking a bear with a stick,” says Karen Musgraves of her daughter’s bolder lyrics. “There are people that aren’t gonna like it. . . . I know that’s scary for me, and I could just imagine how scary it is for her.”

The real Kacey

On the 9:30 Club stage, Musgraves doesn’t look scared for a second.

The most hopeless romantics in the Valentine’s-night crowd are sucking down Budweisers in preparation for a headlining set from Little Big Town, Nashville’s answer to Abba, a foursome that snapped up its first Grammy just a few nights earlier.

Also pinballing around the parquet dance floor is Kelly Musgraves. She says she’s happy to finally see the same Kacey up on stage whom she’s known her entire life.

“THE SONG THAT MENTIONS POT? SHE WOULDN’T HAVE EVEN TALKED ABOUT THAT A YEAR AGO,” she shouts over her sister’s music. “I’M REALLY PROUD OF HER!”

And when Musgraves and her band ease into “THE SONG THAT MENTIONS POT,” the beery audience chit-chat quiets down. By the first chorus, she has every ear in the house:

“So make lots of noise.

Kiss lots of boys.

Or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into.

When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight,

Roll up a joint — or don’t.

Just follow your arrow wherever it points.”

“You agree?” Musgraves asks. The crowd roars the affirmative. But by then, her eyes are back on the strings of her guitar. She was hoping they’d say yes, but she wasn’t asking for permission to continue.

“Same Trailer, Different Park” is out on March 19. Kacey Musgraves opens for Kenny Chesney at FedEx Field on May 25.

READ MORE:

Listen to a playlist featuring Kacey Musgraves and other women of country in The Style Blog.