Maren Morrisis getting back to her roots in her autobiographical new single “Circles Around This Town,” which reflects on her journey to Nashville to try and make it big as a musician.
Morris, 31, released the song and an accompanying music video on Friday, her first new music since the Grammy-nominated 2019 albumGirl.
“‘Circles Around This Town’ is special because it’s probably the most specifically autobiographical song I’ve ever written,” she told Apple Music 1’sNew Music Daily. “All the songs that I write are about my story, but this one was very specific to my journey from Texas to Nashville nine years ago to become a songwriter, when then led in to me becoming an artist that I am today.”
The singer called the track “the perfect preamble to the rest of the [upcoming] record,” and revealed it was written in the fall of 2020 with husbandRyan HurdandJulia Michaels, during a period in which she felt “deeply uninspired.”
“I was not good at Zoom co-writing, I sucked at it,” she said. “I really need to just be in the room with people. So when we wrote ‘Circles Around This Town,’ I was writing in-person, safely with my husband, Ryan, and Julia Michaels and our friend Jimmy Robbins, who I wrote ‘The Bones’ with. I brought that title in and Julia was the one, I think, to sort of prompt me to get really specific with the narrative of that first verse and it was our first time and only time writing.”
Maren Morris.Claire Schaper
Morris said that initially, she wasn’t sure she wanted to get so personal on the track, but ultimately decided it “was the smartest thing and the most emotional thing” to be as honest as possible.
She also explained how working on her third album kept her head above water over the three years sinceGirlcame out, during which time the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, and she became amom to son Hayes, born in March 2020.
“I needed to start making music again to remind myself that this is what I’m good at and this is what I love doing, and even if I couldn’t tour it at the time I was writing, I felt like it was keeping me busy and it was ultimately pulling me out of whatever pool I was drowning in,” she said.
The star said she drew inspiration from the “grainy, devil-may-care attitude” of her ’90s female heroes Sheryl Crow, Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette, and even recreated her teenage bedroom for the clip.
Morris is currently up for twoGrammy awards— best country song for “Better Than We Found It” and best country duo/group performance for “Chasing After You,” a song with husband Hurd.
source: people.com
