Ahead of The Dreamsicle tour coming to Europe, the singer/songwriter takes Max Mazonowicz through the pivotal songs in her life.
Maren Morris has had quite the ride over the last ten years.
From the moment her debut single “My Church” found heavy rotation on country music radio and led to her rapid rise, she hasn’t always taken the easy path. That debut single set her on a road into country music, but Morris hasn’t sat comfortably in the same stable as a lot of today’s modern artists.
With a clever knack for melody and lyrics, Morris’ pop leanings led to vocal discussions in some parts, and in many ways “My Church” wasn’t a true reflection of her musical style. Though as we’ll hear, two very key moments in her story were influenced by the likes of LeAnn Rimes and Patty Griffin.
The other side of Morris that endeared her to many but put her at odds with country music’s more conservative leanings, is her views. Her views on pretty much everything. Morris is not just happy, but passionate about speaking out against injustice and hasn’t been afraid to go against the trend in Nashville.
Her t-shirt emblazoned with “Lunatic Country Music Person” - as she was called by a Fox News host - was a best seller on her website, with over $100k going to transgender charities.
Morris’ Nine Songs selections reflect the ebb and flow of her own music, and it’s easy to hear some of the influences in her own work, such as Radiohead. “I'm more ear trained when it comes to music, I'm mostly in my head creating melodies with my voice, but what their work has done is really opening my songwriter brain to melodies that can go weird, a little dissonant and not by the book.”
Some of the songs Morris has chosen literally changed her life, “It was songs that really made me want to move from Texas to Tennessee and write on Music Row”, she explains. “Learning how to co-write with other country songwriters and get my feet wet.”
With a focus on two specific points in time - 1996/97 and 2005 - in her song choices, that period was particularly formative for a young artist from Texas. “I support that I never graduated out of that decade. It was this really formative pocket of time for me, where I was absorbing so much. They’re still my comfort records.”
Across these nine songs and three decades of music, Morris’s selections clearly trace her influences from Texas honky-tonks to British art pop. “I think if you listen to any of my work and you saw this list it would all make sense, because there's a lot of experimentation and soul and lyrical country storytelling in my examples.”
“My Favorite Mistake” by Sheryl Crow
BEST FIT: I’m a big fan of hers, she played a festival in the UK last year, which was the first time I’ve seen her. And this is a great song. What does it mean to you?
MAREN MORRIS: That was tough one because I would say the first song I actually heard of Sheryl's as a kid was a different song. But to me, “My Favorite Mistake” is a perfect encapsulation of the depth of her songwriting expertise and simplicity. She can strike through it, where it's not overly explanatory and you can make what you want of it.
And I know now - that I’m a bit older - a little bit more of the lore behind it. I thought it was such a powerful statement, of a woman admitting that the time was enjoyable, but it was not meant to be, and there's a really heartbreaking element to that. But on a musical level, within a millisecond of the opening of the song I feel like you know who it is, and you know what the song is, because it's so unique.
To this day people, especially in Nashville, are trying to figure out whatever sounds Sheryl and Jeff Trott [her producer] were creating back then, like what drum sounds they were, how they made it sound like that? Obviously, her being an incredible bassist contributed to that as well. It’s one of my favorite songs of hers.
I actually did an interview with her for a magazine, and she was saying that “My Favorite Mistake” is the one song of hers that she won’t turn down when it comes on the radio. Which I thought was so interesting, because all of her songs that are those bigger radio hits are incredible. So I thought it was interesting asking an artist like Sheryl which is her favorite song, and that one, I guess, is hers.
She’s been a mentor to me over the last decade or so. Before I knew her, she was a huge influence. I have a five-year-old little boy and she's one of the first people I told outside of my close friends and family that I was pregnant. She's got two boys, she still tours a lot and has always had really good advice for me.
During the pandemic she was kind enough to let me use her home studio in her barn. It was a really beautiful place to escape to during Covid. I made a lot of my third album [Humble Quest] in her studio. With people that she loves and supports, she’s an open book.
It's very cool when you can meet a hero that you adore, and they are that kind.
“Blue” by LeAnn Rimes
That was probably the song that I heard that really made me fall in love with country music. I would've been maybe seven or eight years old when I found out that she was from a nearby town in Texas, I grew up in Arlington, LeAnn’s from Mesquite.
This was a really big single for her, and I think she was only 13 or 14. So that really opened my mind to the possibility of music. First off though, how she does she do that yodel? She's got such a rich Alto, and then that vocal flip of the yodel was really interesting to me. I wanted to figure out how to do that, because I think I always knew I could sing, but a yodel is a different technique
And then I wanted to potentially do this thing that she's doing, because she's a few years older than me, is on the radio, living her dreams, and she's from North Texas. It made it feel like it wasn’t a pipe dream, even as an eight-year-old.
My parents were really supportive and got behind the idea of figuring out how LeAnne got to where she is now. Particularly coming from Texas, like Mickey Guyton, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, we all ended up doing this LeAnn Rimes circuit of these little Opries in Texas. Someone needs to do a documentary about it, because I've not heard something quite that unique to a state.
“Blue” really turned my brain on to the idea that I love country music. Her voice was so mature, and I’d learn how to mimic her. Eventually I found my own tone, but she was a huge influence and still is. She's got a voice that is so singular.
It's a brilliant song, the melody for sure is what was drawing me in, and her voice. And there's also classic key change in the end; it was a heavy karaoke song for me for a time.
So that was an influential song in terms of where you've ended up being in music?
It's a really long story, but there was this guy in Texas named Johnnie High and he had his own little Opry music review. It was called ‘Johnnie High's Music Review’, and on Fridays and Saturdays you would basically just stand in line in the freezing cold and auditioned. I auditioned with “Blue”, and you would get to perform on Friday or Saturday night with a live band, which I think was my first time with a band.
I remember LeAnn Rimes had gotten her start there. And it was in Arlington, close to me, so my parents took me. I caught the ear of Johnnie because I could sound exactly like LeAnne. I have lots of photos from that era. My mom would dress me up like a ridiculous cowgirl, but it was my first time singing with a band and it sparked a decades-long journey.
It all kind of started from that song.
“Communication” by The Cardigans
Tell me about when you heard this song and why it’s important to you.
“Lovefool” was obviously my first introduction to The Cardigans, and I think that was the first CD I ever bought with my own money, First Band on the Moon. But I remember in early high school, I discovered Long Gone Before Daylight, which I think was their third or fourth record, and it was quite a sonic departure for them.
They call it their country record, which is so funny because it's The Cardigans. But I remember “Communication”, the first song on that album. And as a 15-year-old I locked in…
I'm 35 now, and I when hear this song it just shreds my soul apart. Every time I hear it. If I'm ever going through a rough time, or a breakup or a divorce, I'm listening to that song and sobbing, and somehow it puts me back together again by the end of the record.
“Communication” is a brilliantly written song by someone that's going through a Saturn return of their life, where they're not quite in their early 20s anymore, they are desperately trying to connect with anything, or anyone. I don't even take it as much of a romantic song anymore, I think it's that lull we sometimes have as human beings where it's like, “I'm having a tough time, even reaching out to loved ones, and I feel so broken. And I'm desperately trying to connect in any way, shape, or form, I can.”
Introverts are looked at as loners or depressive sometimes. And yes, sometimes I do need a little bit of space to myself to recharge my batteries, because so much of my life is outward and public-facing, and energy-deficient.
With some songs, there's a particular moment in time where they resonate with you more than others. Is this is a song you go back to?
I think I listen to this album in its entirety, probably every three months. It's like one of those top five ones for me.
People generally know The Cardigans for more rock-type songs. A bit more up-tempo. But this is a little bit softer and calmer.
I love every era they've had. Gran Turismo is an incredible album. I love “Erase / Rewind”, “My Favorite Game”, but there’s something about Long Gone Before Daylight. And it wasn't until I moved to Nashville that I found other people who knew that album and were as obsessed with it as I am.
And it's all these country people, that are just weirdos. And we always talk about this album, because it was that important to us and still is.
“Christina” by Patty Griffin
Next, we’ve got Patty Griffin, “Christina.” Where did you first hear that?
Maren Morris: I think I was 13 or 14. I was a huge fan of The Chicks, and they had recorded a bunch of Patty songs, but the big one was from their second record Fly, Griffin’s song “Let Him Fly”. But Flaming Red, which “Christina” is from, is like her rock album, and she made it with Jay Joyce… it was so sonically ahead of its time.
Like with The Cardigans record I listen to Flaming Red every three or so months, and I feel like it could have been made today. It's so ballsy from the first note. Then you have these moments like “Christina” and “Mary”. I'm trying to remember as a teenager, why “Christina” resonated so deeply… I think just obsessing over her interviews because it was before Instagram where you could just look up people’s words instantly.
I was trying to figure out what this song was about, and it was about Christina Onassis and the fan mail she would get, and people that were obsessed with her, but no one really knew her. And for some reason, that struck a chord.
I love how beautiful the lyrics are. I actually have the lyrics of “Christina” tattooed on my shoulder blade. I got it when I was 18, and it's still one of my favorite tattoos. It's from the second verse, and it just says, “It's a wondrous world of ridiculous things / With nothing so rare is the love that it brings.”
Even back then that blew my mind, what a perfect poetic statement. Patty will always be one of my favourite songwriters. I think you can hear a lot of her influence in my work, especially vocally, because I was always trying to figure out how she wrote “Let Him Fly” and how she can break her voice in certain moments, but still have complete control over it.
Do you think your relationship with that song has changed? Do you feel there are parallels between Christina Onassis and you, people not really knowing you but having an opinion on you?
Yes, I think so, because no one ever really knows you. You can get close, but the relationship you have with yourself will always be the deepest one. But also accepting that there's not this nihilism with that. It can actually connect you closer to people, because it's all ridiculous, it's all insignificant but in a way that's not depressing.
It’s just being able to say love is a miracle, in moments where you feel overwhelmed or disconnected from your fellow human. But you have to show up. Patty's always going to be a really big mentor for me as a songwriter.
“Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin
This is a song I haven’t heard for years and it’s fascinating.
I think I must have a fascination with Mercedes, as I have a song about it myself [“80s Mercedes” from Hero].
My mom was a massive Janis Joplin fan, so I was introduced to her through songs like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Summertime.” But “Mercedes Benz” was always special to me, I used to cover it in my shows as a teenager. I always thought Janis sounded so country in that song. She was a Texan, of course, but the gravel in her voice really stood out to me. The song itself is so simple, memorable, and classic to me and underrated as far as Janis’ songs go.
I would cover it constantly as a teenager, playing in bars around Texas. I also loved how she was kind of a chameleon; she could really lean into the accent and characters. Especially with this song, where my mom explained the second verse - “Dialing For Dollars is trying to find me” - was a reference to a TV show.
I love the song. It's so goofy and so fun. And I love that she had this thick Texas gravel.
“Airbag” by Radiohead
A British band is next, with “Airbag” by Radiohead.
Honestly, that was the first time I was stoned listening to an album. A friend of mine picked me up at my house after I had smoked weed and I remember my mom was making this strawberry cake. I brought two pieces of cake into my friend's car, one for me, one for him and there’s this really shitty lake that’s next to the neighbourhood I grew up in, but at night, when the lights are lit up over the lake, it's beautiful.
I remember listening to OK Computer, never having heard it before. I'd heard other Radiohead records, but for some reason I’d missed this one. I was 16 or 17. I was listening to the opening track “Airbag” while we were going over this bridge over the lake - this black water, the lights of the power lines all lit up. I remember eating this strawberry cake and hearing “Airbag” and my friend is driving me, I've got the windows down, and I'm like, “Oh, my God!!”, you know, a very cliché stoner brain opening moment.
I was very affected emotionally from the opening moments, and then once the drums kick in, I was sitting back in my seat, like “What is this???” And my friend said, “It's Radiohead. This is one of their best of all time” and then it went into “Paranoid Android”, then “Karma Police” and I was, “What the fuck is going on!” and it really hit me. Not on a lyrical level, because I could not understand what Thom Yorke was saying, his melodies really captivated me, and it just felt like I was on a different planet in more ways than one.
Then 10 years ago at Austin City Limits Festival, Radiohead were headlining, they played “Airbag”. It was the first time I've ever gotten to see them live, they were playing bits of OK Computer and I was crying in the crowd, because I felt like I was in Texas again and really felt like I was reconnecting with my youth.
Radiohead really pioneered me through that wave of experiencing music on a different plateau for the first time.
“Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap
I think any millennial girl is going to have this song mean something to them somewhere in their life. And listen, I'm going to be candid, I discovered it through the show The OC, in the finale of season two. I was taken aback many times on that show through their soundtrack, but that one, just on a cellular level… it was insane, my brain broke. I couldn't tell if it was a woman singing, as it was so androgynous, and obviously with lots of vocoder.
She inspired a legion of artists, especially female artists, and I'm not just talking about the interpolations of “Whatcha Say”, the Jason Derulo song. It's Ariana Grande covering “Goodnight And Go” a couple of albums ago. That album was a really important piece of music.
I saw her in some little theatre in Dallas in 2005 or 2006, and I’ve seen her live several times since. Watching her perform “Hide and Seek” live is really engaging and feels really interactive. Obviously, she's saving it for the encore, but I didn't realise she was doing it via keytar! Her stage setup is wild to watch.
Like you say, it’s quite a different sound vocally from a lot of the other songs you’ve chosen, but also a lot of other songs. How much does that influence the things that you do and how you think about music?
Absolutely. Watching her build a chorus of harmonies live, where she's layering and using a vocal looping station, really did give me an insight into how to layer harmonies in the studio. Watching her create something from scratch, right in front of you, was wild to watch. Seeing her make the choices she was making and not go to the obvious harmony, like the third or the fifth, she would go and make some crazy chord happen, and it would make no sense until she finished it.
That really had an impact on me as someone who loves to layer a lot of vocals in the studio on my own work. With my band The Highwomen, we were doing a lot of stacks, and gang vocals. So being able to blend with other voices and your own is a skill, and watching Imogen do that live across her set really helped me figure out how it works.
“All Night” by Beyoncé
Listening to this song again reminded me what a great album Lemonade is because I hadn't heard it for a long time.
This was tough, because it was between a few different Lemonade songs. It was between this and “Don't Hurt Yourself”.
It’s the journey that record takes you on as a listener - even if you have no idea of the back story of it - the rage that she's going through in songs like “Hold Up”, “Don't Hurt Yourself”, and “Sorry”. And by the end of the album, she's leaving you with “All Night”, when she’s gone through so much rage and hurt and anger and grief.
“All Night” is this moment of reckoning with what these two people have gone through, and it's leaving you in a space of forgiveness, and almost gratitude. I feel like I want to cry talking about it, because when I listen to Lemonade now, where I'm at in life… I hope in my own writing to get to a place where I can write a song like “All Night” with that deep gratitude and forgiveness, because with my record Dreamsicle, there's a lot of feelings happening.
But forgiveness? I don't know if I got there by the time I was making this record, so the fact that Beyoncé just blurted everything out on this album and then leaves herself and the listener in a space of softness. It's an exhale, and really, really beautiful storytelling. It’s also a banger of a song!
When you hear an album with a cycle or a flow through it like that, does that give you something to aspire to when making your own music?
Oh yes. If before tour I need like a little bit of inspiration or pep in my step, I always go and watch Beyoncé’s Homecoming documentary, of her Coachella performance. Because I'm thinking, ‘Oh my God, she was doing this postpartum and made this incredible piece of art that's cemented in our brains’. It always gives me so much gas in the tank.
I saw the Cowboy Carter tour in Atlanta a couple of months ago, and anytime I see her I feel like new and so emotionally inspired.
“I May Hate Myself in the Morning” by Lee Ann Womack
And so, to your last song choice, “I May Hate Myself in the Morning” by Lee Ann Womack.
These are in no particular order. The album that this song is from is one of the top 10 country albums of all time. This was the lead single from There's More Where That Came From, and it’s everything from the album cover artwork, listing the song titles on the front, like an old 1970s vinyl. Lee Ann Womack looks so beautiful on it!
She’s also another Texan who has vocally inspired me and a lot of my contemporaries. She’s one of the most beautiful country vocalists of all time.
This song and the music video is quite nostalgic for me because they shot the whole video in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, at the Stockyards, which is an historic area where my first gig was actually. It was a saloon called the White Elephant. I grew up playing in the Stockyards, and when she's in the music video walking up and down it feels very timeless and nostalgic for me as a kid.
Even though it came out in 2005, it's timeless in the way that the songs she chose for it feel like they could have been written either yesterday or 50 years ago. “I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna love you tonight.” I mean, that's just like a perfect classic country hook to me… I’m immediately locked in.
It's just a heartbreaking song, but so beautiful. That whole album is perfect country songwriting to me and her voice in conjunction with it is country perfection. It made me want to move to Nashville and figure out how to write songs like this, because it’s the cream of the crop to me, and that’s coming from someone who's very influenced by all genres.
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