It’s all whiskey under the bridge, thank goodness.
Today, Kacey Musgraves released her sixth studio album Middle of Nowhere, which features the highly anticipated duet with Miranda Lambert called “Horses and Divorces,” and it marks not only a huge moment in the country genre from a purely musical standpoint, but a turn around in their personal relationship, too.
The two had a years-long feud that stemmed from Miranda’s song “Mama’s Broken Heart,” which was released as the fourth single from Lambert’s 2011 Four the Record album in 2013, and was written by Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and of course, Kacey Musgraves. The song peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Country Airplay chart and has since been certified 3× Platinum by the RIAA, which means it has moved over 1,960,000 units.
The simple version of the story goes that Miranda really wanted the song, and Kacey was reluctant to give it up, clearly knowing that it was a hit, and it was apparently pitched to Miranda without Kacey’s knowledge. Kacey wanted to use it as the lead single to her debut album, but she ended up giving it to Miranda (though she does sing background vocals on it), mostly for the sake of her co-writers because Miranda was the much bigger artist at the time. But being forced to give up her song created some resentment, understandably, that lasted for years.
Their beef also led to an iconic internet moment, which resulted from Miranda’s 2013 speech at the CMA Awards, when she won Female Vocalist of the Year, a category Kacey was also nominated in. That same year, Kacey won the CMA Awards for New Artist of the Year, and they were both also nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year with the aforementioned “Mama’s Broken Heart.”
During the speech accepting her trophy for Female Vocalist of the Year, Miranda congratulated Kacey on her New Artist win, and it the camera panned to a young Kacey looking very much less than thrilled by that comment:
“Kacey, congratulations on New Artist, that was awesome.”
You’ll still see this meme online from time to time, and if you scroll to the second slide, you can see Kacey’s very funny reaction to that which I’m sure was because she was not happy with whatever had transpired that led up to this moment with Miranda and her song:
After years of keeping their distance, Kacey decided it was time to bury the hatchet, so to speak, and in speaking with NPR Music’s Jewly Hight, Kacey explained what went down back then and how the two of them ended up working together for this album.
Ultimately, Kacey said it all worked out because she went with “Merry Go Round” as her debut single, and in my humble opinion it’s one of the greatest country songs of all time, but still, there were hard feelings considering how everything went down:
“Yeah. It was two singers from two nearby, small Texas towns. There’s a lot that comes with that. Then we each take our own different paths, both leading us to Nashville at different times. There was all this excitement behind ‘Mama’s Broken Heart’ for me and it was gonna be my first single and I loved the song so much.
I had been a staff writer for years at that point writing for other people and had finally felt like I was collecting songs that felt like me that I didn’t wanna pitch to anyone else. Then, the song gets pitched to her without my consent or knowledge. It was a tricky situation. She ended up loving the song and she really wanted it. And I had other co-writers to consider. I knew I would have to go back to the drawing board.
And ultimately, I’m really glad that I did, because it forced me to write ‘Merry Go Round,’ which ended up making way more sense for me anyways, aesthetically and lyrically, to kick my whole thing off, versus ‘Mama’s Broken Heart.’ And that ended up going number one for her. So in the end, everyone won because I was able to let go of something.”
They lost touch at that point and definitely “wouldn’t consider each other friends,” but when Kacey saw a photo of Miranda riding one of her horses on Instagram one day, it sparked an idea… because they have two things in common: “horses and divorces,” and a song was born. Kacey says she randomly reached out and asked Miranda if she wanted to write it with herself and Shane McAnally, and Miranda was eager to do it.
She said it was a “very full circle” moment, adding that they aired out any past laundry, had some laughs, and wrote the song in a matter of hours.
And in speaking with Texas Monthly recently, Kacey explained that she and Miranda have known each other since 2000, and she once again confirmed that “Mama’s Broken Heart” was the start of the feud, because it was supposed to be the lead single of her debut album, which is a huge moment for any young artists. As is often the case with hindsight, Kacey realizes now that they “both won” because of that:
“There were some bumps along the way… that ended up making way more sense for me aesthetically than ‘Mama’s Broken Heart,’ so we both won in the end.”
And Kacey was also asked about that meme, saying simply that she “can’t hide” her facial expressions and she was clearly not happy with the whole Miranda situation in that moment:
“I can’t hide my expressions when I feel like something’s fake or it rubs me the wrong way.”
But thankfully, it’s all water under the bridge now, so to speak, and Kacey says her idea to write a song with Miranda was sparked after seeing a photo of Miranda riding her horse:
“Flash forward to last fall, I’m in Australia, and I saw a video of her riding one of her horses or something, and I thought, ‘Well, at least we have two things in common: horses and divorces.'”
Kacey said that there was real tension there for years, and this is not some contrived duet they’ve come up with to get media attention… it’s a simple as the fact that they’ve both just gotten older, and decided to “bury the hatchet” by talking it out and writing what I have no doubt will be a bad*** country song:
“We wrote it in one afternoon. At one point there really was tension there, so it’s not a contrived duet. It’s real. We’re older now and don’t have the energy for dumb s*** like that. But it was nice that we got to talk about it and kind of therapeutically bury the hatchet. We talked about it all, even my face at the CMAs.”
She also described their beef as very real “grade A, grass-fed,” so their making up and writing this song came from a very real place, and I couldn’t be more excited to finally get to hear this song… of course, it was the first one I listened to, and I was not disappointed. Written by Kacey and Miranda with Shane McAnally, it starts out with both of them admitting they’ve talked s*** about each other over the years, and pointing out that there’s “always two sides of the truth.”
But as time has gone on, hell did in fact freeze over, and “at the bottom of the bottle,” they found that they’re maybe more alike than they think and have a lot in common… like “horses and divorces and we both like to drink.”
Miranda references Kacey’s “High Horse,” which many have speculated is about her, and jokes that Kacey would “still be higher” because she is a well-known lover of weed:
“I’d ride in on my high horse, you’d still be higher
And a few years ago, you’d have set me on fire
There were chips on our shoulders, but now that we’re older
It’s all whiskey under the bridge”
Kacey later jokes that she can’t believe they don’t “share any ex’s,” and a huge bonding factor is their shared love of Willie Nelson… but really, “What ***hole doesn’t like Willie?”:
“I can’t believe we don’t share any exes
‘Cause we both love cowboys and we’re both from Texas
We both love Willie, but I mean really
What asshole doesn’t like Willie?”
Amen to that, girls…
They also point out that they love to “smoke and cuss and drink,” and it really is a great song that I have to imagine will be nominated for many awards when that time comes. It’s hard to imagine they weren’t ever good friends because clearly, they do have so much in common even on a personal level, and really, the title “Horses and Divorces” is one of the most country titles I’ve heard in years.
The fact that these two have buried the hatchet, so to speak, after so many years is an example for us all, really, and what both of them did for country music can’t be understated… they were bold when it wasn’t cool, said what they wanted when it wasn’t popular in the least bit, and kept authentic, honest country alive in an era that was mostly filled with guys, many of whom were much less talented than them in my humble opinion, singing about trucks, girls and beer.
They’ve meant everything to me as individual artists, it was a pipe dream for many years that they would ever team up for a duet, but I feel like it happened that way for a reason because if it hadn’t happened this way, we wouldn’t have the standout song “Horses and Divorces” by two all-time great country queens.
Just do yourself a favor and turn it up:
“Horses and Divorces”
Middle of Nowhere Tracklist:
1.Middle of Nowhere
2.Dry Spell
3.Back on the Wagon
4.I Believe in Ghosts
5.Abilene
6.Coyote feat. Gregory Alan Isakov
7.Loneliest Girl
8.Everybody Wants To Be a Cowboy feat. Billy Strings
9.Horses and Divorces feat. Miranda Lambert
10.Uncertain, Texas feat. Willie Nelson
11.Rhinestoned
12.Mexico Honey
13.Hell on Me
