Music

Maren Morris wrote her first song as a preteen and says she knew, from that point on, that she wanted to be a singer. She long envisioned an equitable industry, particularly in country music, where she launched her career. But recently — after a particularly trying year in which headlines declared (not entirely accurately) that she was leaving country behind — the 33-year-old says she discovered something important: what she doesn’t want to do.

“What I’ve learned is that it’s not my job to inform everybody all the time about what I’m feeling,” Morris says, speaking from her Nashville home. “I want to talk and explain less and let the music speak for me, which was the whole point of getting into this in the first place.”

Morris released her major-label debut, Hero, in 2016, featuring the breakout single “My Church,” for which she won her first Grammy (for best country solo performance). In 2018, she scored a crossover dance-pop smash with Zedd and Grey on “The Middle” — her first and only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 — and in 2019 released her acclaimed second album, Girl, which spawned her first Hot Country Songs No. 1, “The Bones.” That same year, she formed supergroup The Highwomen with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires. And while Morris earned her first best country album Grammy nod with 2022’s Humble Quest, she’s most proud of last year’s two-song EP The Bridge.

Both EP tracks — the chilling “The Tree” and rallying “Get the Hell Out of Here” — connect her past of passionately speaking up for underrepresented voices in country music to her future of quietly speaking up for herself. “They were conceived in a moment of great reflection and heartbreak and loss and a little bit of grief and PTSD — all the things,” Morris says. (She finalized her divorce from singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, with whom she has a young son, in February.) “They’re definitely a part of an important conversation that I was having with myself and my existence here in Nashville. They sonically sum up my last decade. I think it was a nice chapter close.”

Now Billboard‘s 2024 Women in Music Visionary feels lighter — and more excited — than ever as she embarks upon writing her next chapter, which she’ll do under Columbia New York rather than the label’s Nashville outpost she has long called home. “I’m just compulsively being creative right now,” she says. “This weighted blanket of burden has been lifted.”

You recently teased new music on Instagram, writing that you’re “barfing up [your] heart.”

Yes. That’s the new album title: Heart Barf.

If not that, what phrase defines 2023 for you?

I’m going to sound so Pinterest, but I think just letting go. Or changeover. I feel like I’m on this precipice of massive, massive change. And the music’s certainly reflecting that. In 2024, not that I’ve got an album done yet, but by the week [it’s] getting clearer and clearer what the theme and the sonics are. I’m not overthinking. I’m not trying to be micromanage-y like I typically am.

How does The Bridge represent that shift?

They are two of my proudest songs as a writer because as real and gritty and personal as I have gotten in past years, I don’t know if I’ve ever been quite as vulnerable as I had with those two. And it wasn’t comfortable to write them or to even release them or do any of the creative. Everything in that was a good green light that I was on the road to whatever is next.

You worked with Jack Antonoff on “Get the Hell Out of Here.” How did you two get together?

We met a year or two ago, and we were just fans of each other’s artistry and, obviously, on my end, his production of all my favorite artists. We’ve been writing a lot this year.

Given his work with The Chicks and Taylor Swift — women who have had similar experiences in country music — what common ground did that create?

I think the background of what those women had gone through before me was … he was the perfect guy to feel trusting and safe with that sort of song. And then with “The Tree,” Greg Kurstin, whom I’ve worked with on my last two records, we have such a familiarity with one another. I love both of those guys so much. I feel like both of their résumés are so musically unbound — I’ve been pretty all over the map with songs of my own, but when you choose a producer, you’re hoping that they have the same melting pot of influences and don’t care about genre.

What artists do you admire for seamlessly navigating different genres?

Miley Cyrus comes to mind first. She’s got one of those voices, and her creative influences are clearly so vast. I mean, just look at the diversity of her albums — it’s almost Madonna-esque, where every album is a new genre or era, because she can do pop, she can do country, and then the Dead Petz record. And then obviously, my heroes: Dolly Parton really broke down barriers of genre with “Islands in the Stream” and “Here You Come Again” and was criticized for doing so at the time because it was like, “She’s leaving country. Dolly goes pop.” Taylor [Swift is a] huge chameleon. And then Sheryl Crow as well.

What genre do you see as the closest to getting it right in terms of inclusivity and representation?

They all have room to grow. [But] just in terms of worldwide reach and really being dominated by women, pop music. It’s kind of a cool Wild West because pop music can be anything: It can be Ariana Grande, it can be Taylor, it could be Noah Kahan. So I do like the freedom of that. Music is headed in a very interesting direction. The album of the year nominees for the Grammys, women dominated. I would hope that country music eventually does the same. Because when you have everyone’s stories, the music is better, and it ushers in younger artists and songwriters and musicians to want to move to Nashville, to want to make music here. It’s interesting to see people go to pop or pop labels [who came] through country.

You said recently you got sick of being a “yes” person. What have you joyfully said “no” to?

In the beginning, I felt this massive sense of pride when I would send an email back and just be like, “No. Pass.” But now I’ve gotten so much better at setting a boundary that it doesn’t feel like a win or a loss. And the threat of that is always, “Well, she’s a diva.” But I hope I lead by example: You don’t ever have to be a b-tch, but you can absolutely put your foot down. Bending over backward is not a thing that I’m willing to do anymore to sacrifice sleep or time with my son. I have to take care of myself.

What’s something that previously felt out of reach but now feels like it’s yours for the taking?

I think just finding joy and inner peace … I wish it wasn’t such a struggle for me. Not that I think so highly of myself, but I wish I didn’t have such a throbbing heartbeat for world suffering. I sometimes wish I could just put my head in the sand and enjoy my privilege, but I don’t want to do that. That’s not the life for me. But I think I’m letting go of having everyone around me put their feet to the fire. I can only focus on myself and align myself with people that have the same wants and morals. I want this year to be about my own happiness — becoming a better mom and boss and human and writer and all the things.

This story originally appeared in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.