Grammy winner Maren Morris released two new songs — “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here” — on Friday (Sept. 15). With them, she also shared the nuanced emotions behind her decision to leave country music and her feelings about the socio-political divide that has deepened over the past several years, reports Billboard.
“These two songs are incredibly key to my next step because they express a very righteously angry and liberating phase of my life these last couple of years, but also how my navigation is finally pointing towards the future, whatever that may be or sound like,” she said in a statement. “Honoring where I’ve been and what I’ve achieved in country music, but also freely moving forward.”
On “The Tree,” she sings, “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem/ But you want to blame it on me.” She adds on “Get the Hell Out of Here”: “I hung around longer than anyone should/ You’ve broken my heart more than anyone could.”
She went into detail about her decision in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, sharing that the growing sociopolitical divide within country music — and the right-leaning views of some of the genre’s artists and fans — has been an ongoing challenge and barrier.
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” Morris told the paper. “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”
“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” she added. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”
Morris — who graced the cover of Billboard’s Pride issue alongside drag stars — has also been one of the fiercest advocates for diversity, inclusion and progress within the country music genre, championing greater inclusion of voices and music from women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and artists of color.
No comments:
Post a Comment