Kacey Musgraves‘ most recent album, Golden Hour, is a country music masterpiece, full of nods to the genre as well as experimental moments, with Musgraves’ voice floating ethereally throughout. While composing the record, the singer looked to many different sources for inspiration, one of which happened to be psychedelic drugs.
Musgraves told Zane Lowe on Beats 1 on Apple Music that at least one songs on Golden Hour was conceived while she was under the influence of psychedelics — the pensive “Mother,” which finds the Texas native missing her mom.
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“I was sitting on my porch one summer day, one summer night,” Musgraves recalled of writing the song. “For some reason this night we went on a little trip and sat on the porch and my husband [Ruston Kelly] was in the background playing this really sad acoustic music. Really sad minor chords and s— and I was like, ‘You’re bringing me down.’ I’m getting so sad over here. I just started thinking about the world and everybody of all kinds just the fact that we’re in this together.”
The 30-year-old explained that she began thinking about her mom and her missing her family, who lives in Texas. Just then, her mom texted her a photo of herself letting her daughter know she had stopped biting her nails.
“And this sounds so mundane, but she was like, ‘Look, you’d be really proud of me. I stopped biting my nails.’” Musgraves shared. “And I was like, ‘Mom, that’s awesome. I’m so proud of you. They looks so good.’ And she wrote back and she goes, ‘Ugly old hands. I can’t keep the East Texas dirt off of them.’”
“And the way that she said that, I just lost it,” she continued. “And then he’s back here playing this sad music and I’m like — I’m just not even on Earth. No, I’m just kidding. I just felt really open and the flood gates open and I just was thinking about my mom’s hands and the fact that I’m sitting there in Tennessee missing my mom who’s sitting there in Texas missing her mom, who passed away a few years ago. And then I wrote the song down in my phone and finished it the next day.”
Musgraves added that Golden Hour is her most personal record yet, as she’s now in a place in her life where she’s comfortable talking about her own experiences rather than largely observing the world around her.
“I feel like I’m sharing more of myself on this album than I ever have,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of an observationist. Kind of looking at the world around me or the town that I grew up in and talking about that. And I’ve never really focused on talking about my own emotions, sharing those, where I’m at, you know? It just felt like the right time. I’m 29. I just got married. A lot of things have come to fruition for me, personally. I’m a lot happier now and I just feel like more of an open person, so naturally, it’s just been reflected in the songs.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Taylor Hill
