It took a few years, embracing a lot of life changes, enjoying her evolving role as a mother to her now five-year-old son, Hayes, and a pivotal sleepless night for Maren Morris to create Dreamsicle, out now. The 14-track record is, in many ways, Morris’s stream of consciousness, as she processes plenty of highs, lows, twists, and turns—and her newfound confidence that emerged in the midst of it all.
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“It’s running the gamut of the emotional spectrum of heartbreak, acceptance, humor, relinquishing control–all the things that are scary but fun feelings,” Morris tells American Songwriter. “I think it’s me settling into my 30s, my new independence, in a deep and light-hearted way. It’s covering a lot of bases, because a lot has gone down in the last two-and-a-half, three years.”
The title track came from Morris’ almost daily, albeit unintentional, habit of waking up at 3:30 a.m., thoughts running through her mind. Fortunately, one of those early morning wake-up calls turned into “Dreamsicle,” a song that ended up driving the entire 14-track project.
“It’s like the witching hour,” the 35-year-old says. “I never know why. It’s mostly because I can’t shut my brain off. But one night on a full moon night, several months ago late last year, I woke up on the dot at 3:30, and the entirety of Dreamsicle now, as the song, lyrically just popped into my head. I rarely have full songs come to mind, so that one just felt like it fell out of the sky. I just jotted as much as I could down before I went back to bed and forgot everything.
“Maybe that sort of divine mystical hour, the nature of the way it came out of the sky at that moment in time, just felt really significant. It’s a song I wrote by myself. And it’s about ‘Why can I never enjoy anything while it’s happening?’ It’s always when it’s in the rearview; it’s always in retrospect. I would love to enjoy life as I’m still sitting in it, (instead of) celebrating it too late, or mourning it after it’s happening. It’s a thing that I think a lot of people who live in their heads deal with.”
“Dreamsicle” might have an almost-universal message. But if anyone needed to hear it, Morris says it is mostly for her.
“I think it was a statement to myself that everything ends,” she reflects. “Everything. You’re not in control of the start or the finish. Just enjoy it while you’re in the middle of it. And then relationships, jobs, opportunities, friendships—you’re at the mercy of the universe. I think me just telling myself in a song, that way I’ve internalized it, the advice to quit trying to rush through these things on some weird linear production timeline. Just enjoy them as they come. Because sometimes things end too soon, or take way too long to get over with. I just felt like naming the title of the album Dreamsicle was evoking this nostalgia of a time that is past.”
Dreamsicle may seem like a response to Morris’s emboldened new era, and her rebuilding a lot of her life and career. But the record has actually been in process for a while, a time stamp of sorts of Morris’s progression and evolution, going from being married to singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, to finding her footing on her own, while also redefining who she is as an artist.
“It went through so many seasons of starts and stops, because I started making it years ago,” Morris says. “I was working with Jack Antonoff, writing at Electric Lady for weeks on end, and then I’d take a break and start touring. It was just a lot of different beginnings. And then, my relationship sort of fell apart. I had to put some of those songs that we had started on the back burner, and just heal and survive that moment in time, and I wasn’t worried about making an album. And then when I felt like, ‘OK, I’m ready to get back in this creative mode,’ I had so much to say. So there were several musical things happening at different timelines going on. It’s all in the same head of mine.”
Morris is rightfully proud of Dreamsicle and, by her own admission, a bit shocked that it is out in its entirety for the world to hear. With bold songs like “Bed No Breakfast” and feel-good, empowering tracks like “I Hope I Never Fall In Love,” Morris is pleased with, and a bit surprised by, her ability to release a project as cohesive and honest as Dreamsicle.
“It is definitely an album that I think the me that moved here 12 years ago would be just in disbelief that I had the gall to make this,” the Texan admits.
Also included on Dreamsicle is “How A Woman Leaves.” Morris was careful in her wording of the song, which was written while she was still watching her marriage come to an end in real time.
“I was very much still in the thick of divorce proceedings,” Morris says of the song, which she wrote with Sarah Buxton and Madi Diaz. “I don’t even know how I was writing at the time. Maybe just out of survival, but not wanting to be alone. I think writes are just sometimes excuses to hang out with your friends. That song was not easy to write, obviously, but it was really important. It ended up not being a centerpiece of the EP, which is now absorbed into the album. But it was one of those songs where I was like, I don’t know about releasing this, because it’s a little bit too hard-hitting, even for me, and I’m not one to shy away from the truth. But I certainly go into everything—I don’t do this out of spite. I don’t do this to hurt anyone. I do it to heal myself, [my] inner child, me now, the whole in between. I just trusted my gut, and my gut was saying that this song should hit the air and see how it lands. But you’re getting it out. It’s certainly one that is deeply meaningful to me, because it is so hard to be the one who walks away from something that was so beautiful, and just is going to look different now.”
Any trepidation Morris had about releasing “How A Woman Leaves” dissipated as soon as she was able to sing it in front of a crowd.
“I’ve had the therapeutic pleasure of performing that live, and it made me realize that I was correct in putting it out there,” Morris says. “Because so many people in the crowds have screamed those lyrics back at me. It just feels like we’re in a group therapy session, and it’s the whole point of being a conduit to some of these emotions that aren’t easy to access. I don’t have to stifle this. I can actually share it and feel a connection with strangers or friends who reached out during that song.”
If “Carry Me Through” was written for anyone, it was written for Morris. The song became the balm she needed, even as she was writing it with Greg Kurstin.
[RELATED: Maren Morris Takes Aim at Country Music “Cosplayers”: ”That’s Never Been Me”]
“It was back in early 2023, so this was an early song in the mix for me,” Morris remembers. “But I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time, of probably some subconscious stuff that I wasn’t ready to face fully yet. But also just touring, motherhood while touring, a lot of new adjustments, post-COVID. Also, just some career stuff I was trying to figure out. So ‘Carry Me Through’ was in a deep pit-of-isolation moment for myself, to be like, yes, I have help. I know that I’m not that detached. I have a therapist. I’ve got best friends. I’ve got family I can lean on. But ultimately, your pattern break is only yourself. You’re the only one who is in control of that. It’s not going to be your therapist. It’s not going to be a song. It’s going to be you deciding to wake up one day and be like, ‘I don’t want to make these choices the same way,’ but in a loving, tender-hearted way. Carry yourself across the line, even if you’re driving your ass across it.”
Dreamsicle is a snapshot of a specific time in Morris’ life, a challenging yet ultimately healing chapter. The record that helped Morris in many ways move forward now has a different goal for her: to help others the same way she was helped by creating it.
“The resounding theme is that you don’t have to be stuck where you are,” Morris says. “Whether that’s in a job or a relationship, you have the strength to transform. You don’t have to just be this thing forever. And it’s hard to pull the plug on things you hold dear and love, but they don’t fit you anymore. It’s really hard to be uncomfortable. But I think that’s the takeaway I was in when I made it, was, ‘Holy shit. I can’t believe I did all of this, and I’m still here.’ It’s all relative. I’ll never compare my life to anyone else’s strife, but I can sit here very plainly and say that I’ve been through a lot, and we all have. I certainly feel like I am strong and have always been strong, but I don’t know how sometimes I made it through all of that, and still wanted to make music about it. So, whether you’re a creative or not, in a musical way, or whatever it is you do and love, if you’re just a music lover, I hope that you take away that you don’t have to be pigeonholed in anything.
“I’m going to be a different person, probably in six months from now, so I just write around it. And it’s nice to go back and listen to these songs and be like, ‘Damn.’ I’m really glad that I’m not in that headspace anymore, and that I still lived to tell the tale about it, and want to perform it, and not feel a traumatized reaction as I sing those emotions.”
Weeks after the publication of our article with Morris, the singer announced that she is releasing a deluxe version of Dreamsicle on Friday, August 1. The album will include four brand new songs: “in love with me” (Morris / Jimmy Robbins / Laura Veltz), “be a bitch” (Morris / Jimmy Robbins / Laura Veltz), “running” (Morris / Tobias Jesso Jr. / Naomi McPherson), and “earth angel” (Morris / Jimmy Robbins / Laura Veltz).
“I thought I was done writing for a bit once Dreamsicle was turned in, but in one week, we got a flurry of new songs in the studio that I couldn’t keep contained,” Morris says. “They still felt like they existed within the Dreamsicle universe, so voila! I can’t even pick a favorite because they all deserve their own moment. Enjoy a little extra summertime with these four…”
Watch our Off the Record interview with Morris below:
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