Switched on Pop - The Ballad of Lainey Wilson and Jessie Murph

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

There's often an unspoken (and deeply misogynistic) rule on country music radio: never play two female artists back to back. In this episode of Switched On Pop's country week, we aim to do just that. Looking at two artists on opposite ends of the country music spectrum – traditionalist Lainey Wilson, and genre-bending Jessie Murph – Nate and Charlie try to understand the state of female country through their respective songs "4x4xU" and "Blue Strips." Songs discussed: Lainey Wilson – 4x4xU Jessie Murph – Blue Strips Lainey Wilson – Country's Cool Again Lainey Wilson – Heart Like A Truck HARDY, Lainey Wilson – wait in the truck Jessie Murph – Gotta Hold Jessie Murph – Gucci Mane Jessie Murph, Sexyy Red – Blue Strips (Remix) Zach Top – I Never Lie Carrie Underwood – Before He Cheats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention Spotify. It has arrived the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, caramelized, and tonka-tostata. A combination that seduce

from the first instant and he has aweller. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute, hypnotica, irresistible. Discover it'lloy and let you involve for his sensia. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

Charlie, it's Country Week, y'all. Hiya. Do you mean yaha? What did I just say? I just said he ya, Charles. Not the most suspicious start. And yet I hope we've managed to elucidate throughout Country Week that country is at a crossroads, right? We've been exploring the different tensions and schisms within the sound and the culture of country through different artists like Big X the plug and Bailey Zimmerman, Morgan Wallin, Post Malone.

We have not given enough credence to the women who are at the forefront of shaping this new sound. of country. And that's a longstanding issue within the world of Nashville, Charles. Yeah, there's sort of this adage in country radio that two women are never played back to back because there's a fear that listeners will change the station. It's completely ridiculous. Let's upset that narrative right now and play two women back to back, Charles. Two women who give us two opposing visions of the future of country music, one that's more reaching back to tradition in the past and one that's firmly looking to the future. And, you know, incorporating other contemporary genres, I want to listen to two chart-topping country acts from

2025, Lainey Wilson, with her song Four by Four by You and a Four by You and Jesse Murph with her song Blue Strips. Very different vibes here, Chuck. Okay, so we've got like trad country on the one hand and then we've got like Neo-Country on the other. Yes. Lainey Wilson is a classic country artist in the tradition of Miranda Lambert, Dolly Parton, while Jesse Murph is a younger upstart mixing hip-hop and trap with country and Americana, they both embody different archetypes of how country music is transforming at this moment. Let's start with the classic representation of country womanhood. Lainey Wilson, Academy of Country Music Award winner, hails from Louisiana, devoted pretty much her whole life to writing and performing country music, moved to Nashville,

right out of high school and lived in a trailer outside of a recording studio just to be close to the scene. Wow. She's got the southern roots, the working class ethic, and the Nashville credibility. Yeah, at this point, she is a veteran of country music at 33 years old. She's been releasing music since she was 14. Her first EP was called Country Girls Rule. Impressive. And that ethos informs her whole aesthetic. She is a country music purist. In 2022, she released Bell Bottom Country. And last year, she released a single titled Countries Cool Again.

Let's take a listen to understand how she views this genre a little better. Well, this is traditional in so many ways from the twang to the, you know, full Nashville's studio session band. But it's traditional also because it invokes a much older country song from 1981, Barberman Drell's, I Was Country when Country wasn't cool. I was listening to the I was country. My trip wasn't cool. You see, in the 1980s, country was having a bit of a moment.

And part of being country is claiming that you are authentically country through your entire life. And the thing is, in the early 80s, country was having this popularization moment when, of all people, John Travolta starred in a film called Urban Cowboy that I guess tried to do to country music what Saturday Night Fever had done to disco. It actually was a total bomb of a film.

But country was emerging. And so, yeah, if you want to claim country credentials, you are country even when it's not cool. And I feel like that's a little bit of what we're hearing in this new track by Lainie Wilson. She sings, everybody want to be a cowboy. Drive a John boat, whip a John

deer. Charlie, we're testing our own country bona fides here. What is a John boat? I know what a John Deer is. It's a tractor manufacturer and heavy equipment manufacturer. What is a John boat? J-O-N. Boat? Are you familiar with this? No idea. We're outing ourselves as Yankees right now?

I don't think there's any outing that needs to be done. A John Boat. John Boats are versatile and durable boats specifically designed for fishing, hunting, or cruising smaller waters. There we go. Ah, they are flat bottom, square it off bow. Lightweight and simple construction.

Shallow draft. Great for fishing, duck hunting, and utility. Uses on the water. Nope. I only know a Boston whaler. Well, Lady Wilson might be anticipating our sort of late to the gameness here. Because check out what she sings later in the song. And next thing, and you're going to piece of land, start saying things like, hell no. Hot damn. Hot damn.

So now that we're going to start getting targeted advertisements for John Boats, I feel like we are also dipping our toes into this country world. And for Wilson, I think there's celebration there, but also maybe a little bit of bitterness. I think she has to maintain her authenticity against some of the fakers who might be maybe wading into the genre temporarily. Exactly. Now let's go back to her current hit,

4 by 4 by you, and see how she's continuing her investigation of, of this classic country sound. Oh, I like this. All right. Before we even get to the vocals, Chuck, there's a lot happening here. There's like a Wurlitzer electric piano.

Which for some might immediately act as a counterpoint to my argument. Like traditional, Wurlitzer electric piano. But Charles, the Barbara Mandrell song you just played for us also has electric piano on it. I remember circling the drive-in, pulling up and turning down. Electric keys. I feel like we're hearing this question of if you're invoking tradition.

It's like at what point in time? What tradition? And there's an era of 1970s country music that got really into using instruments from a more of the rock canon. A lot of the outlaw country artists, you know, more electric guitar, electric piano, the sounds of the 1970s. And that's what I'm hearing in Lady Wilson's track from the very beginning. Before we even get a vocal, it's invoking country tradition. but like you say, maybe not the classic tropes of fiddle and banjo and dobro, this other side of country music, a little more electric and a little gentler as well.

But then she comes in with her first lyric. I'm the kind to take the keys. Don't sit in a shotgun seat less I want to. And you make me want to. I'm the kind to take the keys. Don't sit in a shotgun seat less I want to. So right from the outside. said, it's very clear, like, I am an independent woman. I'm not going to express stereotypes of

docility and subservience. Submissiveness to choose the shotgun seat. I'm driving. I'm in charge. And this opening lyric also makes it clear, for those of us who might be a little confused by the song's title, 4 by 4 by You, what the subject is. One of the classic country music icons, the pickup truck. in a four by four by you. I love her rhyme scheme where she really molds the word country into country to rhyme with Kentucky. It's got some great twang, a little extra vocal inflection. Very nice.

Shout out to Wilson, John Decius, and Aaron Radier, who co-wrote this together. I totally agree. The rhymes don't always fall exactly where you expect them to, which really locks you in as a listener. And this is not the first time Lainey Wilson has explored truck metaphors in her music. Of course not. She had a billboard hit in 2022

with Heart like a Truck. It must feel so good to drive in your truck and listen to that song. I got to say it. And she's not done, Charles. She also features on the song Wait in the Truck by Hardy.

But I knew in the truck. Just waiting. truck. So then 4x4 kind of continues this narrative. She's not one to just wait in a truck in the shotgun seat, no, she's someone who's going to take the wheel and drive. Yeah, I think there's a bit of attention in how women country artists have to portray themselves in relationship to men. Like, on one hand, she says at the start of 4x4 by you, I'm not the kind to sit in a shotgun seat, but I will with you. So it's like, okay, I'm independent, but you're special. I'm going to make an

exception. And then with weight in the truck, that song is kind of weird to me because it's all about like the man in the story basically taking revenge on behalf of the woman and she's kind of more of a passive figure. So I think there's a lot to navigate as a female artist. You have to be independent and strong, but maybe not too strong. Gosh, Google Maps won't give you those directions. You made a navigation analogy. I'm sorry. Well, I was going to ignore it. But in 4x4 by you, it's really about taking this metaphor of the car as far as possible. All the way to the coast of California? All the way to Timbuktu, which I don't know if there's a way to cross the Atlantic on a truck.

I guess you drive it on to some kind of shipping barge or something. Just to confirm, Google Maps will not give me directions from New York City to Timbuck, too, with driving. We'll give Lainey Wilson some artistic license. Okay. We're not supposed to take this literally. It's all about the joy of finding these different metaphors to connect with a loved one through the power of a pickup truck. That's a great example of using a cliche to eke out every possible emotion and a good country narrative can do it. I love a trope.

It's an old school metaphor for an old school style of music. And if it feels a little silly, I think that. That's actually because it's tapping into a lot of the archetypes of country music. And when we turn to the other artists under consideration, Jesse Murph, we're going to see the opposite end of the spectrum. We're going to go, let's see, what's on the other side of Timbuktu, Tallahassee? You're on your own here, Charles. I'm not throwing you a life raft. I'm just going to let you tread water and see what happens.

What's that phrase? We're here to listen and not judge. I'm really trying to internalize that. And you're making it really difficult. Let's listen to New School Country from Jesse Murph after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions.

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Who is Jesse Murph? She is a young artist, relatively new to the scene, 20 years old, hailing from Alabama. She released covers on social media before getting signed to Columbia Records in 2021. And her music is rooted in country aesthetics, but also extremely genre agnostic. Her debut album, That Ain't No Man, That's the Devil, came out in September and has features from artists we've already talked about on Country Week, Jelly Roll, Bailey Zimmerman. But when you press play on the record's first song, Got a Hold, there's a bait and switch. Ooh.

They probably should it closed. I've been going to a play. It's like a soul production with funk drums. Is that Homer Steinweiss on drums? If it's not him, it's certainly someone imitating his signature style. This is cool. It's got like a soul vocal, a funk drum thing, a gospel, ham and organ. This isn't country, is it?

No, but it gets traditional country listeners in the door with the first five seconds. Banjo, organ, and quasi-yoddle, all in unison together. Yeah, I'm not saying the vocal is like the most country thing ever, but certainly banjo, Oregon, it's kind of saying, yeah, come on in. We've got a seat just for you. And it's like, oh, wait. by Amy Winehouse Neo Soul Groove instead. Right. So right from the outset, we have someone who is operating outside the genre confines of country, playing with its sounds.

Jesse Murph has an album coming out next month titled Sex Hysteria that has a couple of singles out already, including the Gucci Main sampling country track, Gucci Main. Sex Hysteria sounds like a deaf leopard record. I'm from Alabama. I'm about 4.11. I got a shitty father And I'd like to go to heaven Internally I'm scrappy But I'm afraid to fight

I prefer to keep my hoops Until I stay in at night Not what you'd expect From a track called Gucci Main And now I feel like the countryness Is really coming from her voice Most of all She's embracing that twang

She's got this behind the beat country feel But it's also in the lyric as well Right Like claiming working class roots is a big part of country tradition. But we also hear her bona fides in the lyrics. Where are she from? Alabama. What's her upbringing? Bad father. Yeah. Right? She's saying like, I didn't have it easy. And not having it easy can be a big part of claiming your identity in the world of country music. You had to fight for what she had. There's sort of this like American rags to riches, Horatio elders,

like kind of story that I feel like she's setting up. And she's establishing that as part of her identity leading to the highest charting song that she's had in her career, the country pop track Blue Strips, also forthcoming off sex hysteria, which peaked at number 15 last month. Let's listen to some more of this track starting at the very top. Boy, mad, boy, mad, boy, mad at you. I had to get back at you. I had to get back at you. 20 American dollars, if you can tell me what she's saying at the very start of that.

Do you need to hear it again? Boy I ain't mad. You looked at the lyrics. I looked at the lyrics. Boy, mad, boy, mad, it's you. There's no way you deciphered that. Boyant something. She's buoyant.

She floats like in a Johnboat. No, I know we both ran to Genius.com as soon as we heard that because we were like, what? No idea. It is Boy I Ain't Mad. And I think she's intentionally pronouncing in this way where it's hard to understand because it makes you pay attention. And it kind of communicates like, maybe she is a little mad

because the way she's singing this is almost like she can't even get the words out. There's a heightened emotion here. I'm pretty sure it's buoyant lad. It's buoyant lad. Just like Starbucks lovers, this is buoyant lad. Let's think back to Lainey Wilson. There was none of that tension in her song. It was much more by the book.

I think Jesse Murph is willing to be a little abrasive and a little grading. in a way. Yeah, well, especially if she's writing a country song. I mean, go to the next lyric and I think we take a hard exit off the country highway, you know, straight into California. I just bought a mansion in Malibu. Must be nice. You know how I get with an attitude. I just bought a mansion in Malibu. You know how I get with an attitude. Or as Jesse Murphy sings, you know, how you. You know how I get when I have an attitude. I go and spend tens of millions of dollars on a Malibu mansion.

That's just, you know, bad mood by real estate. This is not following the footsteps of Dolly, Loretta, and Miranda Lambert. No, no, no, no. This is more Lana Del Rey. Meets Miley Cyrus's Malibu with a hip-hop verse. Yeah, you got me thawin blue strips. Bed tits in a strip club throwing in wines. At your bitch.

Yeah, this sounds so much more like a kid who grew up listening to some country, plenty of hip-hop, her little Nazex, and went harder. Now, both Jesse Murph and Lana Del Rey performed at stagecoach this year, and Jesse Murph also performed at Coach this year. So I think you could argue that they're both helping to bring pop listeners into the country space. Like, Lana's also experimenting with country. And she's done the hip-hop thing as well. So yes, and hip hop is the other thing that just like with Bailey Zimmerman and Big X the Plug and Morgan Wall and Little Dirk, hip hop deeply informs the sound of this record. The song's producer B-Con has worked on several Kendrick Lamar records, including Damn and Mr. Moral and the Big Stepers. Oh, wow.

And Blue Strips even got a remix from hip-hop star, Sexy Red. I just bought a fast car so I can run up with you. Scur, skurs, kurs, kurs. Everybody know how I can when it come to my boo. Okay, so now it's got me asking what the heck are blue strips? Great question, Charles. Yeah. As we've established, I had to Google it.

It is referring to the blue band that is placed as a watermark on $100 bills running vertically across the center of the bill. This is a more recent development in American currency, since you and I, frequented strip clubs back in the day. So now this is, no, we've never been to the street club. So now this is, rarely do I have a $100 bill on my wallet? This is slang for a $100 bill, yes. Okay, so this is interesting because in our last song with Lainty Wilson,

we were looking at the cliches of country music and the history of the truck. Whereas the iconography that Jesse Murph is drawing from pulls much more from the world of hip hop. There are no shortage of songs about strip clubs. Now, I'm sure there are also plenty of songs about strip clubs in the world of country music. But I really like that she uses this title, Blue Strips, because you're kind of like, what is it? I don't know what it means. I'm curious. It sounds like it could be some Americana, like a Blue Stripe.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. Like, you know, in Lainie Wilson, she sings about white stripes on the highway. Yeah. I was like, is this Blue Stripes, Blue Strips, something like that. But no, it's hip hop inspired. It's in the club. It's in the strip club.

It is not about a. truck. And there's other ways it pushes back against country tropes. Like she invokes Malibu as a place where she just bought a damn mansion. Traditionally, I feel like Malibu, Southern California, that represents the antithesis of Nashville. I mean, even for another 2025 billboard country chart to Jack Topper like Zach Top, in his song, I Never Lie, he contrasts Malibu to the good old American South. Yeah, I met somebody too. She's a model and she's begging me to move. She says Malibu is really great. He's setting up this dichotomy between Nashville and Malibu. Blue Strips is embracing this Southern California party lifestyle. I just want to point out an important detail about American history.

so many Western films shot in the greater Los Angeles area, probably the Malibu Mountain Range have been used for Western scenes. Certainly the areas north and east of Los Angeles, all of the deserts, etc., have been the stand-in for all the great country and Western films. So, you know, the imagery of country music often does have a relationship to the greater Hollywood area, whether they like it or not. Now, there is a way that Blue Strips does rely on country tropes, And that's this invocation of the classic country cheating narrative. In many ways, it's in the same lineage as a song like Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood. One of the great revenge love songs.

Jesse Murph is also taking her revenge. Oh. She says, I had to get back at you. Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is a revenge mansion. This is, I'm getting back at you by buying a mansion in Malibu. Is this like her ex-lover? owned a house and now she bought the one next door just to like bother the person.

Well, knowing where she came from, I mean, that's probably the biggest flex that she could hurl at this former lover. Yeah, because we have this rags to Rich's story. And so to say, hey, I'm getting back at you by showing off all of the wealth that I've accumulated. You know, you underestimated me. Look where I am now. I get it.

Now, if we zoom out and compare the song to four by you by Lainey Wilson, we've seen a lot of differences here. But there is one commonality. They are both exploring ideas of women's empowerment, I think, through very different routes. Jesse Murph is more hip-hop, more selfish, a little more bitter, maybe, a little more contemporary. Lany Wilson is a little more throwback, a little more archetypal, a little more leaning into cliche. If we think of these two artists as representative of the splits that are happening in country music, we see it's not just about genre. It's also about generational difference. Jesse Murr feels like a young artist, someone who has been brought up in this different kind of climate, this different musical world.

And there's a difference in how she and other newer school country artists are approaching the music, genre agnostic, willing to unsettle archetypes, willing to bring in new languages and new sounds. It makes me wonder, what is the minimum? required dose of twang to be considered country. Like, is it one note of banjo? Is it saying country? What is it? It might not take much.

It might just even be in your look to some degree, which Jesse Murph has in spade. She's got this, like, powerful bouffant heralding back to Loretta Lynn. And she's embodying country, but also giving it these new sounds. And so far she seems to be pulling it off. It's an attitude. It's a perspective. It's a hairdo. It's so many things. Yes. Country is a bigger tent than ever. And for the women who for so long have

sort of battled for their place within this ecosystem, it might be a promising moment where they can not only have the commercial success, but also express themselves artistically as well. All the power to express themselves, however they want. I'm still very confused about what this has to do with johnboats and being buoyant. I hope that we'll solve this mystery by the end of the... this special country week. Who knows? Indeed. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz,

edited by Art Chung, engineered by Bill Lance, illustrations by Iris Gottlie. Our theme song is by Jossi Adams and Zach Tenario of Arc Iris, remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network in a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Mag.

You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Also, a special shout out this week to Charlotte Tang and Zach Mack for their help. Find more episodes of Switch on Pop anywhere you get podcasts. Hit us up at Switch on Pop on social media. Tell us who some of your favorite women in the country space are right now. And go to our show

notes or our website, switch on pop.com, and sign up for our newsletter. We're going to be back tomorrow with more Country Week. And until then, thanks for listening. Ye'all. Hi-ha. Thanks for listening. I knew it.