Hello everyone! For this week's blog I will be discussing Kacey Musgraves and her new album, Star-Crossed. I got into Kacey’s music in 2018 when a friend of mine recommended Kacey's music to me, and they told me that she is the future of country music. At first I wasn’t into her music but after hearing more of her songs I realized what an amazing artist she is. Kacey is known to talk about controversial topics in her songwriting, such as her support of the LGBTQ community and marijana use. However, she believes that these topics are not controversial because they are a part of so many people’s lives, and I definitely agree with her. Kacey has five albums out: Same Trailer Different Park (2013), Pageant Material (2015), A Very Kacey Christmas (2016), Golden Hour (2018), and of course her newest album Star-Crossed (2021). In 2019 I was very fortunate to see Kacey perform live on her Oh, What A World Tour at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. Kacey has such a great stage presence and she makes everyone feel welcomed. I have tickets to see her again in 2022 on her Star-Crossed: Unveiled Tour, and I look forward to having that experience again. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to write a post on that show!
If you are not familiar with Kacey’s new album, she wrote it after her divorce with Ruston Kelly. This album is designed like a three-act play and there are five songs per act. The first act is the set up of the tragedy, the second is the confrontation, and the third is the resolution. Kacey got this idea from a guided psychedelic trip. During her trip she thought of Romeo and Juliet and how they were star-crossed lovers in a tragedy. She identified with this and felt that she was living through a modern tragic love story.
Alright, let’s move on to the song review. I have decided to pick a song from Kacey’s new album, Justified. Let me tell you this: if you are going through a breakup this is the song for you! Even though I am happily engaged I could still relate to this song. This song is more pop than her older songs, but you still get that country vibe with it. I love the pre-chorus so much; the lyrics are incredible! “Moving backwards, hurt comes after. Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line”. I mean, wow! I have never thought about healing like that before, but it’s so true. We all hope that we can recover from something so heartbreaking easily, but it doesn’t always happen like that. It takes time to heal, and sometimes things get worse before they can get better. In the chorus the rhymes are great. They help connect the song together and keep it flowing, and the harmonies are also amazing. I am a big harmony fan (I was an alto in choir); it adds so much more fullness to the song. Throughout the song Kacey expresses that because she wasn’t treated right she is justified to take her time in healing, but in the bridge she says: “If I need just a little humore time to deal with the fact that I should have treated you right”. I love this lyric because even though she went through something terrible she knows that she can’t put the blame on someone else. She was responsible for some of the pain. Although she caused pain, she is still justified to need time to heal. No one is perfect, but the best way she can move on is to accept that she was somewhat responsible and take time to move on. This song goes to a deeper level than most break up songs, and that’s why I chose to write about it. Kacey is an amazing artist and I hope you check out some of her music.
Author: Lydia MacDavid
Chief Editor: Jacob Tomeny