"good wife" by Kacey Musgraves, Saturday, September 24, 2022

In 2019, Kacey Musgraves won the Album of the Year Grammy for her pop-country crossover record, Golden Hour. Before accepting her Grammy, she kisses her husband of almost two years, fellow country singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly, and makes her way to the stage in hugging presenter, the actress Nina Dobreva. Both the singer and the actress are clad in red, but Musgraves flourished dress presents the country turned pop star as potential for bigger red-carpet moments. Music's biggest night has recognized Musgraves for her accomplishments. It's all sunshine and ponies from here on out and a Pop-Country career filled with love, "Butterflies" and "Rainbows." But the pandemic took different tolls on everyone.

GOD, HELP ME BE A GOOD WIFE. Musgraves in interviews talks about how it was the pandemic that made her realize that her marriage was over. Musgraves said, "I could have coasted through another couple of years, just not paying attention to my feelings or not really dealing with some things." But turning to psilocybin therapy, a kind hallucinogenic mushroom, Musgraves processed her divorce and what she wants in life and love. And from that processing came her 2021 fourth record, star-crossed. Taking its name from the Prologue of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed in a way takes inspiration from the ancient Greek tragedies in which lovers are fated to make each other miserable. In Romeo and Juliet the term "star-crossed" refers to the ill-fated protagonists who fall in love despite their feuding families. Shakespeare uses "star-crossed" to show that it was inevitable that the two fell in love, and it was inevitable that the aversion to that relationship would be their undoing. Like Musgraves, many people think that marriage will somehow complete the incomplete, but they wake up to find that they were deadass wrong. Years down the road in an unhappy marriage, you find out he's been opening up all along to some courtesan. Best be getting yourself to the local magistrate.  

I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE. On Golden Hour, despite being Musgraves' love album, the singer deals with loneliness when life is busy and her partner can't make time to be there for her in the second song "Lonely Weekend." She hopes he'll cut his hours back and spend more time with her. "good wife" is the second track on the star-crossed, and the song seems to be related thematically to "Lonely Weekend." While the song may make some of us think about the CBS drama about a wife and mother who "stands by her man" when scandal rocks the family, re-entering the work force as a lawyer, the song bears little resemblance to the show. And yet, as Alicia Florrick rebuilds her life, becoming her own person outside of her relationship with her unfaithful husband, we might start to see why Musgraves named this track "good wife." If the song were to stand alone without the context of the record, "good wife" sounds similar to Tammy Wynette's 1968 classic country song, "Stand by Your Man." Wynette's twangy classic was adamantly hated by feminists. Future first lady Hillary Clinton even snidely referenced the Wynette's song in a 60 Minutes interview when questioned about Bill's alleged infidelity. Hillary Clinton quickly issued an apology after Wynette stated offense. It makes sense that Musgraves would both pay homage to country's past patriarchy while subtly undermining it; modernizing the country genre has always been Musgraves' goal. On star-crossed Musgraves adds divorce to her list of white-evangelical-influenced genre of Country music she hopes to destigmatize, and in Shakespearean terms, fie those who say that you should just stick it out!

From star-crossed film:

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