Plot twist: She’s not going anywhere?
Maren Morris made headlines recently when she announced that she would be leaving country music, releasing her EP The Bridge while saying that she was ready to move on:
“These two songs are incredibly key to my next step because they express a very righteously angry and liberating phase of my life these last couple of years but also how my navigation is finally pointing towards the future, whatever that may be or sound like.
Honoring where I’ve been and what I’ve achieved in country music, but also freely moving forward.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Maren explained why she felt it was time to move on:
“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over… but it’s burning itself down without my help.”
And she called country music “toxic” while discussing her exit:
“I don’t want to say goodbye, but I really cannot participate in the really toxic arms of this institution anymore. I couldn’t do this sort of circus anymore, feeling like I had to absorb or explain people’s bad behavior. And you know, laugh it off.”
But apparently Maren isn’t exactly ready to call it quits with country yet after all?
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week, the host asked Maren if she was really leaving country music:
“No, no. I’m taking like the good parts with me and all are welcome.
But there were some facets of it that I didn’t really, like, jive with anymore. So no, I’m a lot happier now.”
She also said that she could never really leave country music behind:
“I don’t think it’s something you can really leave, because it’s a music that’s in me and that’s what I grew up doing. That’s the music I write. Even if I’ve been sort of genre-fluid my whole career, you can’t like, scrub the country music out.”
So she’s just leaving part of country music? I’m confused now.
Of course Maren has never really been “country,” as she admits herself. So maybe it doesn’t really matter anyway.
