After winning Grammys for best country album and song, earning five Academy of Country Music nominations and sweeping the Nashville Scene’s nationwide critics poll for the best in country music in 2013, Kacey Musgraves discovered the new normal last weekend.
First, there was a cake covered with glitter and a Grammy logo presented by country superstars Lady Antebellum, whom Musgraves just rejoined as opening act on tour.
Then there were rehearsals for a new cover song that Lady A wants to play with her in concert. And there’s the newfound excitement when audiences hear Follow Your Arrow, the tune she performed on the Grammy show three weeks ago.
“There was a huge reaction to Arrow so I guess a lot of people must have watched,” she said last weekend from Boston.
Like Taylor Swift, Musgraves tries to keep it real – except she comments more on society than on ex-boyfriends. The 25-year-old newcomer refuses to sugarcoat her lyrics for country radio. If she wants to sing about pot smoking, same-sex love or people who have two kids by the time they’re 21 – all referenced in Follow Your Arrow – she does.
The song’s genesis was a note Musgraves wrote to a pal.
“I had a friend who was moving to Paris for like five months and she was leaving everything she was comfortable with behind – even the language,” she said. “I gave her a little arrow necklace and on the card I wrote a dumb little poem. It said something about following your arrow and kissing lots of boys and having fun. But I saved the idea because I thought it would make a really great song.”
Already known for penning such hits as Mama’s Broken Heart for Miranda Lambert, she began writing Follow Your Arrow with Katy Perry for the pop supernova’s most recent album.
“When I played the idea, Katy said, ‘That sounds like something you’d really be great at. I think you should keep it for yourself.’ I’m really glad I did.”
Musgraves finished writing the tune with Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark, two Nashville songwriting aces who are gay.
Noted critic Geoffrey Himes, writing in the Nashville Scene about its best-of-2013 winners, praised Musgraves and Clark for relying on “vigorous realism rather than lazy clich
