Big Kacey Musgraves guy.
Donald Trump just announced his pick for running mate, revealing that he had chosen Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to be his vice presidential nominee.
Vance was first elected to the Senate in 2022, after joining the Marines in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and then going on to attend Ohio State and Yale Law School.
But prior to his political career, Vance was best known for his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which discussed the Appalachian values of his upbringing in Kentucky and Ohio. The book was a New York Times bestseller, and was later adapted into a 2020 movie directed by Ron Howard.
We’ll be learning a lot more about Vance now that he’s officially the GOP nominee for Vice President, but back in 2017 he sat down with country artist Kacey Musgraves to discuss the parallels in their work.
Vance revealed to Musgraves that his cousin was her biggest fan, and that his favorite song of hers was “Merry Go Round,” discussing how the story in that song is reflective of the people in Appalachia that he wrote about in his book:
“There’s obviously a certain vibe about small town America, that’s what you’re singing about and that’s what you’re writing about. It’s an interesting comparison to a lot of the folks I write about in my book.”
They also discuss their upbringings and feeling out of place among “high society,” and the influence that their grandparents had on their lives – including Kacey admitting that it took a long time for her grandmother to accept some of the language and themes in her music.
Obviously Kacey didn’t realize at the time that she was potentially talking to the future Vice President of the United States (and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she won’t be voting for Trump/Vance 2024), but it’s an interesting conversation between two creatives about the parallels in their work – and even more so now that one of those creatives might just be the next VP.
