“Merry Go ‘Round” by Kacey Musgraves, Thursday, September 30, 2021
SAY WE WON'T END UP LIKE OUR PARENTS. Kacey Musgraves isn't the first country crossover. Slate Magazine's Hit Parade had an excellent history of Top 40 appearances by country music stars when talking about Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks. The '70s were full of examples of twangy pop hits from the likes of Dolly Parton to John Anderson. The '90s saw the rise of stars like Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus on the Top 40. Around the turn of the century, there was Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and LeAnn Rimes. But the podcast makes the argument that no artist can serve two masters. In the end, a country star must choose if they are more loyal to New York or Nashville. Artists like Twain faded because of her trying to please both markets. Country artists could try out pop, but if it didn't work out, they could quickly come back to country as if their pop career never happened, i.e. LeAnn Rimes and Faith Hill. In the case of Taylor Swift, she wrote an album and then another and then another that didn't have a country hit. She became such a big pop star that her country background could be forgotten by her youngest of fans. One issue in the country-pop conflict is politics. More and more every year, pop stars have to cater to a liberal audience. Pop stars can be canceled for having the wrong stance on a social issue; however, Country music tends to be quite conservative. Of course there has always been a "rebel" vein in Country music. Whether it's the country rockers like Charlie Daniels or the Allman Brothers to the pot-smoking Willie Nelson or shock-country songs like Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman," there's been a precedent to push what's acceptable. But what about an artist like Kacey Musgraves? A singer-songwriter who appears much in the realm of country music, yet loves to curse in interviews, talks about smoking pot, birth control, gay rights, and feminism challenges the establishment of Nashville. She asked in an interview with The Guardian in 2018 "Where are country artists of [color]? Where are the country artists who represent the LGBTQ+ community from a first-person perspective?" She went on to ask, "Why can't I just be a musician, or an artist, or a singer-songwriter? No, it's always 'female musician' or 'female singer-songwriter.'"
IF YOU AIN'T GOT TWO KIDS BY 21. In many ways, Same Trailer is the singer's most straight-forward Country release. Musgraves sings over a banjo on her debut single "Merry Go 'Round." The music video shows old video footage from post-World War II suburban American life, the idealized propaganda of what the American dream is supposed to look like. We see mothers staying home in the kitchen with children playing. The homes have manicured lawns and a new car in the drive way. The song, however, takes a more Southern, less suburban approach to the lyrics. In this first single, Musgraves addresses several themes she will come back to in other songs throughout her career. First, the song addresses life in a small town, with the urgency of settling down and having children. Musgraves, at the time of recording this song was about 23. She was young and not ready to settle like the dust in her hometown. Next, the song casually mentions that there are people in that small town who don't believe, but are pressured to go to church because it's the norm in that small town. The pre-chorus introduces us to a family, each member has their own vice: "mama" is part of a multilevel marketing scheme, her brother's a pot-head, and her father is cheating with another woman in the neighborhood. All of these lyrics are woven together with homophones for Mary. The second verse talks about American consumerism making small-town Americans not strive for greater things. Marriage is something people in small towns do because they're so bored of their mundane lives. The outlook is bleak, and we long for the singer to break free. She should go to college. She should go abroad. She should become a singer. She should do something. And yet, it's all too relatable to when I go back to Western North Carolina or Upstate New York. I see imprints of who I could be. And then I think about my life now. How have I settled into the dust of a mundane existence?
Official Music Video:
Acoustic performance:
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