Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Kacey Musgraves is trying to get right with time

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

From the beginning of her career, Grammy-winning musician Kacey Musgraves has been doing what feels authentic to herself. She sings about familiar country themes like falling in love and heartbreak. But she also sings about smoking pot and queer relationships. Musgraves talks to Rachel about not being defined by anyone but herself, becoming more open-minded and living with the ghost of her grandma.To listen sponsor-free, access bonus episodes and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

What is an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there? The childhood house that I grew up in, it has this really magical feeling to it. And I actually own it now. I think it's rare that you have like a completely direct time capsule like preserved from your childhood. Like how many people would die to go back in their childhood home and see it exactly as it was. I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wildcard. The game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards.

Pick a card one through three. Questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped them. I do feel like life keeps getting better as I get older. My guest this week is musician Casey Musgraves. And it's something that everyone that's older than you tells you and you're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. But I do feel that. I've been thinking a lot about authenticity lately, which is a word that is thrown around so much at this point in our culture.

afraid it's losing a little bit of its power, frankly. But regardless, we all seem to be craving it, right? Real interactions with people, authentic connections, the rough, messy truth of things. It's definitely one of the big reasons I started this show. It's what I want in my own life. I want it in my relationships, but I also want it in my music, the films and all the books I consume, all the things. And yes, every artist is after it in some way, but the thing I love about Casey musgraves is that she just is it. From the beginning of her career, the songs she wrote about were just about the life she was living and how she saw the world. She's saying about falling in love with fellow country musician Rust and Kelly and getting married. And then later on, she sang about

falling out of love with him and getting a divorce. She also sings about smoking pot and queer relationships, and she put a disco song on one of her albums and does not give two hoots if you think she's not country enough. Thank you very much. She's also going to drop some F-bomb consider this year language warning. She's making her art her way and she's making it for herself. That other people dig it, that's some sort of major fringe benefit

that has put her at the top of the charts and won her album of the year at the Grammys in 2019. It was only the fourth country album to ever get that honor, by the way. Her new album is out now. It's called Deeper Well. And I am so happy to welcome Casey Musgraves to Wildcard. Hi.

Casey, thank you so much for being here. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk with you. So how do you think about that word authenticity? Because you're just like, take it or leave it, man. Yeah. I think from day one, I just kind of had this phobia of the idea of having this audience or fan base that's, you know, had a wrong idea of who I was. I have always thought, like, I would much rather have a smaller audience that is like 100% hands down. and they know exactly what I'm about, rather than kind of becoming some homogenized,

like situation where, you know, you might have millions and millions of fans, but they kind of have a watered down, like, idea of you. It's just, I don't like that. Yeah. So congrats on the new album. Thank you. Yeah.

Thanks. What do you love most about these songs as a collection? Oh, my gosh. It almost makes you want to tear up. I love these songs so much. feels very grounded. I feel grounded where I'm at my life. There's a lot of musings on, you know, learning about intimacy and lightness, darkness, death even, like, what's on the other side? All these kind of existential questions that I'm always kind of ruminating on, you know.

Girl, this is why I wanted you to have, I wanted you to come on and play this game because, and I will tell you exactly why. I mean, I love all your music, but what sealed the deal is this line in your song, architect off the new album. And this is what it is, it says. This life we make is it random or fate? Is it too late to make some more space? Can I speak to the architect? This life that we make is it random or fate? Can I speak to you.

Casey, it sounds like a question that comes right out of our deck of cards that we use in this game. Like we are, you and I are Sympotico and you didn't even know it. I love it. Yeah. See? It's going to be good. It's going to be magical. Can't wait.

So with that. Are you ready for the game? I'm terrified, but yes, I'm ready. Okay. I've got a deck of cards in front of me. Each one has a question on it. And I'm going to hold up three cards at a time. You are going to choose one at random to answer.

Right. Okay. There are two rules. You get one skip. If you use your skip, I'll swap in another question from the deck. Okay. You get one flip. You can put me on the spot and ask me to answer one of the questions before you do.

You ready? I am. memories. Okay, so three cards. All right, Casey, one, two, or three. So one, two, or three, I'll go with one. One. What's something about the place you grew up that you couldn't wait to leave behind? That's a funny question. Well, I come from, well, first of all, I'm going to say that I had a wonderful childhood, but I did grow up in like a very conservative part of East Texas. Tell me the name of the town. Golden. It's really small.

Yeah. There is a post office, but there's not a school. It's not big enough for a school. So I think growing up there, it's different than growing up in a city where there's like a million different viewpoints and there's a million different religions and a million different cultures and languages. There's a lack of diversity like where I grew up. And I just had this urge to like see the world travel.

And that's when I started really understanding that everyone is the same, you know. And I wouldn't have gotten that if I would have stayed there. Yeah. I mean, I get that. I came from a small town in Idaho. I totally felt that too. But I can't figure out how I knew any different either. You know what I mean?

Because it was just my whole world and my family had been like from that same place for five generations, six generations. Right. So, I mean, for you, how did, I mean, did you have other family who lived in other places? Like how did it come into your imagination that there was a different way to live? There were other places that could open up your imagination. I think it's just a natural curiosity. And thinking that like really anything is possible, like I don't have to do it the same way as everyone else. Like academics are not my strong suit.

I was diagnosed ADD in fifth grade. So there was a lot of like talking, fidgeting, not paying attention, failing classes, to be honest. Like my parents eventually got to a point where they were like, if you can just bring home a C, we will be really proud of you. Yeah, yeah. And my mom, she's an artist. Oh, too, and yeah. And my parents, they've owned a small print shop. Like, I've always seen my parents be their own bosses.

They've never answered to anyone, which there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying, I think that compounded with, like, kind of the artistic nature in the household, too, it was just kind of like, okay, well, I don't really have to play by any certain rules, you know? Yeah. All right. We're moving on. K and PR getting deep as hell this morning. I told you. I told you.

It was going to be your jam. Okay, so three more cards. Three more questions. Okay. One, two, or three. All right. Three. Okay.

What is an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there? Hmm. An ordinary place. You have a skip and a flip. Well, hopefully I serve no-skip albums. You're serving no-skip questions. Wow. Dang.

Well, I mean, maybe I can say the childhood house that I grew up in, it has this really magical feeling to it. And I actually own it now. Yeah, I read that. Did you paint it pink? Yes. Oh, yeah. That was my grandmother's favorite color. So basically, we grew up on this plot of like,

About 50 acres, there's a lake. It's like deep in the piney woods. It's so beautiful. And I lived in this tiny little, nothing special, nothing fancy. I mean, country little house, but comfortable, you know, comfortable enough, but very small. My sister and I shared a bedroom. And there was one bathroom. We all crammed into elbowing each other out of the way. Like it's so mundane and it's so ordinary. But it's like, it's so. special. It just has like so much character and magic and and nothing about it has changed. Like, I keep struggling with like, well, it really needs to be updated in some of these ways, but I think it's rare that you have like a completely direct time capsule like preserved from your childhood. Like how many people would die to go back in their childhood home and see it exactly as it was. My sister, she got married in the front yard there. You know, it's, it's my grandmother died on the property. There's like, I don't know, there's good ghosts. It's got good mojo. That's great. Yeah.

There's been a lot of life and death on that property. And you can feel it, but not in that creepy way. And, like, I've been, I remember this was last year maybe, but I was laying there in the house. And there's always, like, this little radio in the kitchen just, like, always on in the background playing, like, this, like, classic country station. It's, like, just really comforting. And I was laying there, and all of a sudden, the volume on the radio gets cranked, like, as loud as it can go for literally no reason. No one was touching it. And I was just like, okay.

All right. I love it. See you, Grandma. When we come back, Casey tells me about her relationship with silence. I feel like silence can allow you to kind of sort of not run from something, you know? All right. So now we're into round two. This round is focused on insights.

Okay. This is observations. You've gleaned about yourself right now, stuff you're learning, working through. So three new cards. Okay. Pick a card one through three. One. One.

When has selfishness served you well? That's a good question. Well, it depends on what you call selfishness. Are boundaries selfish? I mean, I've gotten better at this over time, but self-preservation is something that is very important to me. and, you know, in a lot of different ways, whether that's, like, kind of my willpower when it comes to, like, my health and wellness kind of routines and wishes or, you know, maybe examining kind of some characters in my life that maybe take up energy that isn't necessary. That's a little bit about what Deeper Well is, you know, is about too. It's about kind of ruthlessly removing resistance to growth in a lot of different ways.

Yeah. And that can come off as selfish, I think. And cutting people out who you decide aren't, it's not good. They're not serving you, those relationships. It depends. I mean, I think that you're given relationships, whether you want to say it's from God, the universe, fate, randomness, I don't know, whatever. But I do think people come into your life and their flaws kind of rubble

against your flaws and together you sort of kind of learn something new about yourselves or what you want, what's important to you, what you don't want. And I think not all relationships are meant to last forever. I think there's like seasons for everything, you know, and as an adult, I think as like, you know, when you're younger, you think it's easy to see things as very black and white and finite. Like, you're not my friend anymore. Like, I am done, you know, and it's like, and cutting people out, but it's like maybe as an adult you just kind of quietly observe their patterns and the way that they affect you in your life and you just adjust yourself accordingly to the level of closeness that you feel like is appropriate given what you know about them

and what they add or subtract from your life. We have one more in this round. Okay. One, two, or three. I'll go for one. One. How comfortable are you with silence? Hmm.

It depends. Sometimes I really create. grave silence and I don't believe in just filling the air for no reason with small talk or I don't know that that can be really really exhausting but then sometimes you're with people and you're like why does the silence feel uncomfortable I think it's a really great measure of a relationship when you can kind of ride silently in a car with like your significant other or a good friend and you both don't feel awkward and like you have to feel you know fill the silence I'm like, yes, okay, these are my people.

I can be silent with you and it's not weird. Being silent with a person, though, is one thing. But being silent in a space that used to be filled is another one. And I guess this is me asking you if the silence felt more profound after your divorce. Or was it silence that you were craving? Well, I feel like silence is really necessary. sometimes and it can allow you to kind of sort of not run from something, you know. And that went down during COVID, which was kind of a silent period for a lot of us. And it allowed people to

really examine like, okay, I'm not able to run from something. What is important to me? What's bothering me? And it's funny, just back to like an auditory, like form of silence. Like, I remember being like singing as a kid. I sang a lot. But obviously, and I remember, like, being in the car with everybody would be, like, in the whole van with, like, the entire family. And they would want to put on, like, talk radio or, like, something really loud. And it would be, it would feel excruciating to me. And I would be, like, please, I would, like, beg them, like, can we please have silence? Like, please.

As a kid, it was like a young kid and they'd be like, okay. And then it would be, like, a silent car ride. And I would be like, oh, my God, yes. Like, please. Like, I think, I don't know. So, like, I can't, I think, if there's a form of auditory anxiety, I feel like I have that. When we return, Casey talks about how hard it is to come to terms with time. And now it's round three.

This is the final round. Okay. Beliefs. Hmm. This is the big picture stuff, the way you see the world. All right. Three new cards. Pick a card.

One through three. Hmm. Let's go for two. Two. Was there a bedrock. truth in your life that you came to find out wasn't true. Hmm. I wonder if this goes back to like where I grew up and the preconceived notions about certain things culturally and not.

You know what I mean? Like, for instance, you know, growing up, the acceptance of people in the queer community was kind of non-existent. where I grew up, I could count on one hand the amount of times I encountered an openly gay person. That's not to say that I encountered people who were closeted. But there was a very kind of typically a majority one-way view of it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, that kind of like mentality. And so I kind of like left Texas with sort of this kind of idea that, well, people choose to be that way. And when I moved to Nashville, I started making friends in that community. And I actually had a boyfriend at the time who did me a huge favor.

He was from a completely different upbringing than me. He was like from a liberal family, like upstate New York. And he had a ton of gay friends. And he just sat me down one day. And like we had a real hard and honest conversation about it. And he was like, listen, like, you do not have the right perspective on this. And he like, I don't know. helped me completely open up my eyes and see. And I was just like, damn, I'm so glad that I had the

opportunity to get out of where I came from and to have my eyes and my heart open to this really wonderful group of people. And they've made me way more well-rounded. I mean, it's not like central to your music, but you do talk about queer relationships and just acknowledge queer people in your art, I mean, that's clearly intentional. Do you feel sort of an obligation to use your platform that way? Well, you know, one of the best compliments that I've ever received in terms of my music and who I am in the world, you know, it's when occasionally people come up to me and say, hey, I grew up in a really small town like you did, and I've always loved country music, but I've never felt invited to that party. Honestly, it really wasn't about ever pushing buttons ever. It just was me

kind of observing what was happening around me and, you know, doing my job as a songwriter to put that in the form of a song. And like, to me, country music is always about real people, real stories and why wouldn't it continue to evolve? Yeah. Three more cards. Still in beliefs. One, two, or three. Three. Three. Three. Does Does time feel like a positive or negative force in your life right now? Hmm. That's a really good question. Honestly, the passage of time is something that, like, really fucks me up.

Really? It's, yeah, there's something so melancholy about it. You know, just seeing your grandparents get older, your parents get older, relationships changing, you know, looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles that were there that weren't there before, you know. But, you know, it's time is really trippy, like how it moves and bends and I don't know. I'm just thankful. I'm thankful for it. I'm thankful for the time I have. And I do feel like life keeps getting better as I get older.

And it's something that everyone that's older than you tells you and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But I do feel that. I think I'm in this place that feels kind of liminal. I guess in terms of just even just like relationships. Like I'm in a period of time. where I'm, this chapter is not defined by anyone but me, anyone else but me. And I don't know what's going to come next in that sense in my life. And that's, that's rare for me. I feel like I'm usually jumping kind of sort of to the next relationship because I love companionship. And it's just been really

nice to like slow down time, enjoy exactly where I'm at and kind of enjoy the, the not knowing of what or who might be next, you know. That's such a lovely answer. I really am enjoying it. Like, I'm kind of drinking each day, each moment in, and I'm trying to not like wish myself to the next whatever's on the horizon. Yeah, because it'll come. And then you'll wish for the other one to have stayed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. It's like we are even in terms of like looks, you know, we see pictures of ourselves five years ago and we're like, damn. I wish I would have known how great, how like how in shape I was then. I was so down on myself. Casey, we are the youngest we will ever be right now. I know. I hate it. I'm just kidding. It's like, it's what I say a lot like when I kick off my shows. Like, I'm like, hey, everybody, we are existing right now at the same exact time on this crazy planet in the middle of this like crazy universe. It's a miracle that we are here at the same time. And like this moment right now, who you're with tonight, what you're going through in your life, what I'm going through in my life is never going to be the same.

as right now. So like, let's just be as present as possible. Yeah. And it's just, it's a nice reminder, you know, it's like, let's put our phones down. I mean, you know, take some cute pictures, get the good angles. Tag me. You can tag me. But let's be present. Last question, three more cards, your last three cards, one, two, or three. Three. Three. What's a place you consider sacred? Wow. I have a few answers. We've touched on one, my childhood home. And also, I took up meditation a little over a year ago. I would say that space is very sacred, you know, that when you can kind of tune out the static of everything that's going on on the surface and go down sort of below the waves into sort of your own restful conscience. When you can get to that place, when I can get to that place, I can strip away the layers of stress, you know, kind of pared on the hard drive, so to speak. It feels so delicious. It feels sacred to get back to that place.

What about yours? You have to tell me yours. Oh, my sacred place? Yeah. Mine's less metaphysical. It is just like, it's a piece of ground. It's in Idaho. It's where my family's from.

It's the land. My parents built their, like, house that was going to be their kind of sanctuary refuge place they were going to die. And then they did. My mom died 15 years ago and my dad died a couple of years ago. And their ashes are in the river in the back. And there's like a bench. They're like this old wooden bench that my dad put up after my mom died. And it sits under this cottonwood tree.

And, yeah, it feels a little on the nose to name. the place where my parents are essentially have been consecrated into the ground as my sacred place. But it really is. It is deeply, deeply sacred to me. And they were both very deeply religious, spiritual people. And so that ground feels alive in some way that I mean, I know I'm the one imbueing it with meaning that way. But it does feel that way to me. I love that. I mean, and it's special that you have that place to go back to. And I just kind of love the idea of being returned to the earth after you pass, you know. There's like a lot of talk right now about natural burial. And I think it's so, it's so intriguing.

Oh, yeah. There's the natural burial place in Tennessee, and they actually did, I mean, it wasn't there, but they did a beautiful service for John Prine, who's another one of my heroes. And they basically plant you in the roots of a tree. And so you're part of this tree forever. And then I know they took like water from his, the river from his hometown and like used that like to water the tree. And it's just so beautiful and organic. Yeah, I love that.

I love that. Yeah, me too. Casey Moss Graves. You won the game. I won. What do I win? You win a trip in our memory time machine. Okay.

To revisit one moment from your past. It's a moment you wouldn't change. change anything about. Hmm. Okay? You just want to spend a little more time there. Which moment do you choose? I want to go through my camera roll almost and look.

Well, I would say one is any trip I've taken to Japan. I'm always so sad when it ends. Really? Yes. So I'm going to push you to tell me if that's true, then what moment? Okay. I have one for you. So we decided to take this train from Tokyo about an hour outside of town, I believe, to this little town called Kamakura.

So there's a beautiful palace there. And you walk through this incredible bamboo forest. And there's these caves in the distance that have shrines in them. And it's just, it's like almost looks like something out of like Zelda. There's these perfectly manicured. Zen gardens and there's butterflies everywhere and it's quiet and it feels so sacred and you kind of walk through the bamboo forest and there's these old women making fresh matcha tea and you sit by this little stream and you watch this you watch this water kind of just drip onto this mossy rock and you're just sitting so quietly so contently you're not looking at a screen and it just felt like this the most unspoiled place on earth. We walked around the gardens and the group that I was with, I was with like a handful of people, we all were weeping. Like, I can't explain the feeling. It was just like this, it was so moving. It felt like, God, makes me want to cry talking about it now.

It was just like, you know, just so lucky to be able to like witness this energy and to feel it and just life, just observing how precious it is and how beautiful and innocent it can be amongst all this insanity. And then, you know, we went into the temple. We took our shoes off and we sat for a while and just, I mean, the emotion just poured out of all of us. We rode back on the train and completely silence. Like, we couldn't, it just was hard to put into words just like how special it was. It was really, I'll never forget it. Yeah. Casey Musgraves, her newest album is Deeper Well.

Casey, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I loved it so much. That was so fun. If you like this conversation, you should check out our episode with another musical icon, Jack Antonoff, the go-to producer for Taylor Swift. He was just so open and honest throughout our conversation, specifically, his answer to the question, how has grief shaped your life? It blew me away. I still think about what he said. We also have a bonus wildcard question with Casey Musgraves for our wildcard plus supporters.

She talks about the backhanded compliment of being considered a great. great woman songwriter. It feels like a disservice, even though it's like, you know, the hottest women of this or the hottest female albums. It's like no one is saying the hottest male albums. Right. Just stop. You can listen to that bonus episode and every one of our episodes, sponsor free,

by signing up for Wild Card Plus at plus.npr.org slash wildcard. This episode was produced by Ramel Wood with help from Cher Vincent and Lee Hale. It was edited by Dave. Blanchard. Fact-checked by Willchase and mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Romteen Arablewee. You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org. Please do. I love when we hear from you. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.