Maren Morris released her new song “Better Than We Found It” on Friday along with a music video for the inspiring track, and fans who watched the clip all the way to the end heard Morris deliver a letter to her 6-month-old son Hayes, who was born in March just after the coronavirus pandemic began. “Hayes,” Morris says at the end of the video over footage of the two sitting on a picnic blanket in a park. “You were born the year the world stopped turning. The moment I first held you, we stared at each other for the longest time.”
“I knew that very moment that you were special,” she continued. “My heart grew and would never be the same. You’ve been my precious silver lining these dark last few months. People are dying. A global pandemic has shut our world down, and people are more afraid, angry and distant than ever.”
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“I don’t know how it got like this, but I will acknowledge my part in it. I have to do better. I will do better, for you. Our education must grow alongside our empathy,” Morris told her son. “Any time I get overwhelmed at the mess we’ve created, I try to see the world through your eyes. Negativity, fear and bitterness haven’t yet touched you. You are kind and curious. I want to rekindle that in me.”
The 30-year-old concluded her letter by promising Hayes that she will “step back to let you someday lead the way. I will, like you, never stop being kind and curious, and I will spend the rest of my waking days leaving this world, that you find so fascinating, better than I found it,” she said. “Love, mom.”
Morris also briefly referenced Hayes in the song’s lyrics during the last chorus. “When time turns this moment to dust / I just hope my son’s proud of the woman I was,” she sings. “When lines of tomorrow are drawn / Can I live with the side that I chose to be on?”
The song’s music video was directed by Gabrielle Woodland and follows three sets of people — Gustavo Flores and his younger brother, who have lived in the United States for most of their lives under the Dream Act but were told in January they would be sent back to Mexico; teens Jade and Emma Rose, who worked with Teens4Equality to organize a Black Lives Matter protest that drew over 10,000 people; and the family of Daniel Hambrick, who was shot and killed by a Nashville police officer in 2018.
The video also features photos from protests around the country, which are interspersed with shots of Morris performing in a church. A portion of proceeds from “Better Than We Found It” will be donated to the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and you can go to www.bwhi.org to donate.
