Song Exploder - Maren Morris - Humble Quest

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Maren Morris is a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum artist. She’s also won multiple country music awards, including CMAs for Female Vocalist of the Year, and Single of the Year in 2020, but her feelings about the country music industry are kind of complicated, as she discusses in this episode. She breaks down her song "Humble Quest," which is the title track from her third album. It was produced by Greg Kurstin, who’s won the Producer of the Year Grammy more than once. The album came out in March, and hit #2 on Billboard country chart. But before "Humble Quest" was a title, Maren had to figure out what the words meant to her, and that’s where the song began. To learn more, visit songexploder.net/maren-morris

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hirway. Marin Morris is a Grammy-winning multi-platinum artist. She's also won multiple country music awards, including CMAs for female vocalists of the year and single of the year. But her feelings about the country music industry are kind of complicated, as she discusses in this episode. She breaks down her song HumbleQuest, which is the title track from her third album. It was produced by Greg Kirsten. who's won the producer of the year Grammy more than once.

The album came out in March and hit number two on the Billboard Country Chart. But before HumbleQuest was a title, Marin had to figure out what the words meant to her. That's where the song began. My name is Marin Morris. I was driving around Nashville one day, and when I'm driving, especially by myself, it's where I get a lot of song ideas.

And HumbleQuest was one of them that day, and I didn't know what the hell it meant. I just thought, wow, this is a weird phrase, weird two words sandwiched together, but I thought it was interesting. And I was writing that next day or two with my friends, Jimmy Robbins and Laura Veltz, and I just had that title. I always try to come into the songwriting room with my co-writers with something, some sort of melody or title or concept.

So I did sit down at the piano in my basement and try to find a progression of course. that I could even start this with, just so we had something. And I had my voice recorder on my phone going. And then I just sang. I haven't looked up in a while, but I can sure as hell fake a smile. It was in a much lower key

because I really only can play in one key on the piano. I'm on a humble quest, Laura's first reaction when I said, I have this title called Humble Quest. She was like, okay, let's hear more. It's always an open book writing with Laura and Jimmy. They are close friends of mine, but also we have a really deep trust with one another. So, you know, it's for like an hour-long conversation. So, yeah, it was just a therapy session for me coming to them with this idea and then kind of chiseling out what it could mean.

I think the word humble had been hanging around my head for months because as I become more mature and have a little bit more wisdom each year of my life, I grow more confident in myself. But there is a funny pressure put on people when they are confident in what they do. And sometimes that gets perceived as arrogance or having a lack of humility. And I started to get less offended by it and just really try to break it apart. Like what is that phenomenon where the word humble is really weaponized against people? And I would say particularly women. Yeah, that's kind of the headspace emotionally I was in. when we wrote that song that day.

I played them on Jimmy's piano what I had already started that morning, but that was all I had. I told Jimmy, I was like, but obviously I needed like four keys up. Then I was able to get away from the piano because Jimmy's great at playing every instrument. So Laura and I can play guitar and whatnot,

but having Jimmy in the room to kind of drive the musicality of the song helps us, like, Laura and myself really focus on the lyric and the melody. So Jimmy is at his desk making the demo. We've got the drumbeat. And then he's just got tons of guitars around that he just feeds right into the computer. So he's doing all the parts

and kind of laying that groundwork for us to be able to really wrap a story into. And then once we finish that structure, Jimmy will turn to me and say, are you ready to sing? Most of the time, it's just scary because you don't know the song yet, but it's also when you get the best vocal takes. We were working on the chorus.

I think it was Laura that came up with the, and damn, I do my best line. That just felt so solid. Like, okay, it's an ongoing perpetual quest. It felt, you know, not like a fist pump, but it felt really encouraging. I just remember when Greg Kirsta and my producer heard this demo, Greg really didn't want to start over.

We put real instruments on the final version of HumbleQuest, but he's so respectful of my relationship with Jimmy. And so we kept the heart of what Jimmy did musically. Greg is one of those virtuoso producers that just plays everything so well. I mean, he's an incredible drummer, incredible guitar player, a classically trained pianist. He's a nerd, and he's a genius. The only time we ever really put another musician on this album was steel guitar.

Rich Henman did all the steel guitar parts. I love steel guitar. I just haven't had the song that lent itself to needing steel guitar on one of my previous albums. A lot of people attribute it only to country music, but it doesn't need to be these sort of honky-tank sounding steel parts. It's so beautiful the way that it's woven throughout this song. At the beginning of 2021, we were coming off of such a heavy year.

You know, 2020 was this season of change for the world. And I was growing really disconnected and from. frustrated with the music industry. Country music, particularly, you know, where I reside and where I feel at home, I feel like country music really had a lot of changing to do. Got easier not to ask, just kept hitting my head on the glass. I have deep respect and roots in country music, but once you open your eyes to the imbalance of, representation, not just against women, but people of color, LGBTQ. Yeah, there's so many things that you open your eyes to and you're like, what the hell is going on here? But if you open your mouth about an injustice that you see or you question the system, you know, people start to think like, oh, you're biting the hand that fed you.

Humility is the brand of country music, I feel like. it just makes me always think about the differences between pop music and country music. You know, if you listen to any like Cardi B song or Dooley, but they are completely owning their womanhood, their finances, their CEO-ness. And it's this amazingly inspiring bravado that people are totally accepting of in pop music. But in country music, if a woman ever said anything like that in a song, I think a lot of people would be like, she really lost track of her roots.

The line between fulfilled and full of myself. I'm trying to find you. Standing up wasn't enough of how do I not cast a shadow. So there's a song by the Backstree Boys that I love called Shape of My Heart. And it's like, Looking back on the things I've done, I was trying to be someone. That's the chorus.

And then in the bridge part of that song, it's like, I'm looking back on the things I've done. And instead of writing an entire new bridge, you just repurpose lyrics from the chorus, but you put it over a different melody. So we did the same thing here. I promise it's not just out of laziness. It just feels great. we kept the harmonies that I did in the demo. I love doing the higher and lower third. It's kind of like your Peter Pan's shadow.

You're very lockstep with what you've done because it's you. It feels so anthemic, but it's so personal. And those are always my favorite songs of artists. It's so personal, but somehow it feels like it's stadium-worthy. I loved the way that we kind of wrapped the chorus up with saying, I don't know if I'm ever going to find it, but I'm going to keep searching for it. For me, what it is is feeling that self-security and also knowing that you're not going to have all of the answers every single time.

Some days I have it or I feel like I do, and some days I absolutely don't. Knowing that that's wisdom in itself is knowing that even at 100, you're not going to have it all figured out and there's something kind of freeing about that. And now here's HumbleQuest by Marin Morris in its entirety. Learn more. Visit songexploader.net. You'll find links to stream or download this song. And you can watch the music video. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me.

So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners. on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now.

You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, RishiCash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were made by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely and Casey Deal, with artwork by Carlos Lerma,

music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistants from Chloe Parker. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at SongExploder.com.

net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh Heirway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.