Kacey Musgraves – ‘Deeper Well’
I’ve never been the biggest fan of country music but there’s just something about Kacey Musgraves. It all made sense when I returned to ‘Golden Hour’ during lockdown after initially listening to it when it got released back in 2018. It quickly become one of my favourite albums ever and even though the follow up ‘star-crossed’ was great and I enjoyed it, I felt like she wasn’t hitting the highs of ‘Golden Hour’.
Enter ‘Deeper Well’. When the album dropped, Kacey has been through her divorce (‘star-crossed’ was dubbed her divorce album) and now she’s on that very American path of a “healing journey” only this journey doesn’t sound as trite as you might assume. ‘Jade Green’ is quite literally about keeping Jade on her to help her heal. She’s direct and vulnerable in songs like ‘Giver/Taker’, where she talks about giving her lover everything she has and wanting the same in return. Like in ‘Golden Hour’, she’s observant and looking at what’s in front of her and trying to interpret it, are they signs? Is there a deeper meaning to what she can see (‘Cardinal’). Kacey’s pondering lyricism is at it’s best in ‘The Architect’. She’s questioning the world and why things are the way they are. She’s asking if she can speak to God to answer her questions and then by the end of the song is asking if there even is a God.
I loved country disco, LSD dropping Kacey.. I loved post-divorce, country-pop Kacey and I really love folky Kacey. One of my favourite albums of the year and a perfect sister album we finally got to the brilliant ‘Golden Hour’.