“there is a light” by Kacey Musgraves, Saturday, March 11, 2023

 

About a month ago, I was in America. It was a Friday night at my sister’s house. My sister’s wife had just made a delicious risotto and we had a bottle of wine. We had been talking about what music we had been listening to before dinner, and as we were sitting around the TV wondering what to watch. I said that at some point I wanted to watch Kacey Musgraves’ star-crossed on Paramount+ because the film was not available to stream in Korea. 

THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. One of the reasons I wanted to watch Kacey Mussgraves’ star-crossed was that I thought that the film would give me more context for the songs. Kacey*, my sister’s wife said, “The film provides less context,” and “You’ll probably be more confused after watching the movie.” And half a bottle of wine later, nothing was making narrative sense. Not every track on the album is illustrated in the form of a music video, but the songs that are are treated immaculately. The loose narrative follows an unhappy Musgraves from a Kill Bill-like chapel scene opening dance sequence with the album’s opening, title track to her lament in “good wife” then an attack on the other woman in “simple times” to a car crash in “justified” and a repair of broken hearts in “camera roll.” Then in the third act, Musgraves experiences a kind of death in “there is a light” and a psychedelic kind of funeral with a dance sequence. Finally, the album and film end with “gracias a la vida,” a cover of Chilean singer Violeta Parra’s 1966 hit. With the absence of a coherent narrative—and more importantly the absence of salacious, concrete details about Musgraves’ end of relationship and divorce from singer Ruston Kelly—viewers are to interpret the themes as they appear visually. 

THERE IS A LIGHT INSIDE OF ME. The completely camp performances in star-crossed: the film gives us an illustration of a woman who goes on a personal journey from feeling that life’s meaning was summed up in a traditional marriage. But ultimately, Kacey Musgraves finds that she will lose herself if she submits to this antiquated model. Furthermore, it seems as if Ruston Kelly had lost interest in this version of Musgraves as well. The most damning details come from the song “breadwinner,” which wasn’t adapted for the film. In the song, Musgraves explains that her ex leeched onto a strong “breadwinner,” until he ultimately grew intimidated by the relationship. As for the film? The flamboyance seems to be a rebellion against the traditions small-town Texas born and raised Musgraves has been fighting her entire career. Today’s song, “there is a light” is the epiphany that Kacey is fine as she is. Whatever she was told growing up about marriage and divorce she found to lack the truth that she learns from actually going through the process.  

Read the lyrics on Genius.

Lyric video:

Scene from star-crossed: the film: