Maren Morris is clarifying her comments on leaving country music. The superstar made waves when she announced in a September 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times that she was distancing herself from the genre she had called home for a decade. But Morris is now providing more context to the statement, saying that she’s distancing herself from parts of the industry as opposed to the music itself.
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“It’s a little bit hyperbolic to be like ‘She’s left country music,’ because that’s ridiculous, but I certainly can’t participate in a lot of it,” she explains in an October 2023 interview with the New York Times. The new interview comes weeks after Morris released a pair of new songs in what she’s calling The Bridge —”The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here.” The former track was co-written by Morris and her frequent country collaborators Laura Veltz and Jimmy Robbins while Morris teamed up with pop producer Jack Antonoff on the latter.
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She says The Bridge songs were the result of a “ton of traumatic shit.” “I felt like I don’t want to say goodbye, but I really cannot participate in the really toxic arms of this institution anymore,” she continues. “I love living in Nashville, I have my family there. There’s a reason why people come there from L.A. and N.Y. to write with us because we have amazing songwriters there, so that’s not going to change. But I couldn’t do this circus anymore of feeling like I have to absorb and explain people’s bad behaviors and laugh it off. I just couldn’t do that after 2020…A lot of things changed about me that year.”
She also shared that she’s asked that her music not be submitted to major awards shows like the CMA Awards and ACM Awards. “I don’t know if it’s forever or it’s just how I’m feeling in this current state,” she says. “I’m not shutting off fans of country music, that’s not my intention. It’s just the music industry that I have to walk away from.”
The singer also recalls her first show in New York City early on in her career when she only had two singles out and how the diversity of the crowd is what she’s worked to maintain throughout her career. “I was so bowled over by the look of the crowd, it felt so diverse and accepting and loving,” she observes. “I’ve only wanted to continue that and amplify that through my work each time and collaborations, all of these things are just to bring people to it and together,” she adds, citing The Highwomen with Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby as an example.
“I’m OK kind of just doing my own thing. Come with me if you please…All are welcome.”
Photo by Morgan Foitle/Courtesy of Sacks & Co.
