When Shane McAnally is asked about his favorite song from the 2023 musical Shucked, he pauses to think before answering, “Maybe Love.” McAnally and longtime songwriting collaborator Brandy Clark wrote the music and lyrics to the production, whose book is written by Robert Horn. Following its debut on Broadway in April 2023, the show has been met with critical acclaim and nominated for several Tony Awards, with one of the show’s stars Alex Newell winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical, making him one of the first openly non-binary actors to do so.
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“Maybe Love” appears at the end of Act I and is sung by Maizy, who must postpone her wedding to Beau until they figure out why all the corn in town is dying. The pure-hearted song compares love to growing a garden with such lyrics as: Maybe love is like a seed / A little sun is all it needs / A little rain and so it goes / It grows and grows in rows and rows from dust / Maybe love just needs a little love. Below, McAnally tells American Songwriter about why the song is so meaningful.
[RELATED: Brandy Clark Talks Grammy Nominations, ‘Shucked,’ and Why 2023 Was Her Best Year Yet]
The Meaning Behind “Maybe Love”:
“The theme of the show is ‘Maybe Love.’ Maybe love just needs a little love is the line that we ran with because much like a garden with corn in it, it just needs a little love. It just needs a little faith and a little time and just a little love. So ‘Maybe Love’ as a theme needs the same. Maybe we just need to nurture it and give it its due. I think that song because of that line is probably the song that is the most important to us. But the song I’m most proud of is ‘Corn’ because when someone gives you the task of writing a seven-minute song about only corn, we really felt like we delivered.”
Shucked is nominated for Best Musical Theater Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards. The production will go on a North American tour in 2024, beginning at the Providence Performing Arts Center in the fall.
(Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Academy of Country Music)
