“Then I came out new / All because of you.” “I was hiding in doubt until you brought me out of my chrysalis,” she wrote. A couple of weeks later, she composed a simple, heartfelt melody, “Butterflies,” about the way he was already changing her life.
In her 2013 song “Stupid,” about a love affair that’s gone bad, she sang, “I drink to feel / I smoke to breathe / Just look what love / Has done to me.” But in May 2016 she got to know Kelly, a little-known Nashville singer-songwriter who was then 27. Over the years, Musgraves has not exactly waxed sentimental about romantic relationships. Some of it contains her usual wit and wordplay, but what’s surprising-jarring, even-is that it also includes half a dozen love songs. This month she is releasing her fourth album, Golden Hour. “And believe me, it takes a lot of courage in Nashville not to do what other people say you should be doing.”Įven without the benefit of mainstream country radio, Musgraves has built a large following, provoked music critics to describe her with such phrases as “gloriously provocative,” and brought home a stack of trophies from awards shows.
“She’s a rarity in this business, someone who refuses to be anyone but herself,” says Shane McAnally, one of Nashville’s top songwriters and producers. But in her own cheeky way, she is part of the outlaw tradition, singing only the songs that are important to her, even if they rarely get played on conservative-leaning country radio. With her gleaming smile and tight-fitting cowgirl outfits or bodysuits that she sometimes wears onstage, she will never be mistaken for a gritty honky-tonk performer. Other Nashville musicians in recent years have formed a kind of new outlaw-country movement-singer-songwriters such as Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, Nikki Lane, and Margo Price. Musgraves’s unadorned tunes combine twangy instrumentation with lyrics that most mainstream country musicians would never touch. She seemed destined to give Carrie Underwood a run for her money. She was exceptionally pretty and had an achingly beautiful voice. When Musgraves arrived in Nashville from Texas a decade ago, at nineteen, industry insiders took one look at her and assumed she was another wannabe country diva who hoped to someday stride across stages, belting out power ballads that had been expertly crafted by hitmaking songwriters. She literally wants strangers to break into her home? “Well, I do need my house cleaned,” she says. “I asked them if there was any way they could break in,” she says. “I usually clean it myself, but I had to call a cleaning service because I’ve got people coming over for Thanksgiving.” She thinks for a moment, shrugs her shoulders a little, and quickly composes her own text, her fingers flying. “Oh, man, the maids don’t have a key to my house,” she tells me as she looks up from her phone. On her left hand is a giant engagement ring given to her by her husband, singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly, whom she married in October. She wears a tiny silver nose ring and what she describes as her “comfort clothes,” a dusty rose sweatshirt and stretchy black yoga pants. Musgraves is barefoot, her thick black hair falling straight down her back. We are sitting in a dressing room at the Fox Theatre, in Midtown Atlanta, where she will be performing in a few hours. Kacey Musgraves wrinkles her nose as she looks at a text message that has just come in. This article originally appeared in the March 2018 issue with the headline “Love & Kacey Musgraves.”
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