Maren Morris on the Status Quo and Stupid Molds

Do women in country music need to be super religious?

Do women in country music need to be super conservative?

Should women in country music never show their body?

No. No. And no. That’s what Maren Morris says in the Genius lyric breakdown for her latest single “Girl.”

“I don’t know who made these strictures,” Morris says. “There’s just such a stupid mold that we ourselves are attempting to fit into. And it’s just bullshit.”

She says that what inspired the song was a little fight she had with a woman she was working with. “An hour into the write, I realized it was me looking in the mirror and being like, ’This is all your shit, your insecurities, your bullshit.’”

The Morris goes on to break down the inspiration for the song, belting it out as she does, and she does it line by line.

This shit’s unflattering: “I was just talking freely about how ugly I was being. It was unflattering.”

Vanity’s my vitamin: “How do you tell the difference anymore? If it’s our real self or having a moment of just being completely vain. We’re all guilty of that.”

What you feel is natural: “It’s completely natural to feel like, ’Today I suck.’ That’s okay. Picking yourself up off rock bottom felt really image evoking.”

Girl, won’t you stop your crying: “So many of us have that fear of looking stupid. It gets honestly more confusing as we get older. So the acknowledgement that you actually are out on the ledge and you’re trying is such a therapeutic, loving thing to say to someone.”

Don’t you lose your halo: “I love that the fact that this song switches point of view quite a bit. The chorus was a tough love, older person telling you you need to get it straight. You need to get over it for now.”

Drawing comparisons: “Compare, compare, compare. Comparison is such a killer. I’m not trying to do what you do. And the crown thing, it was like: we can all be queen.”

Toward the end of the video, Morris explains the middle of the song, and how she moves from one perspective to another. “Changing the point of view in that pre-chorus, I kind of equate it to myself stepping in and out of the mirror,” she says.

“I just imagine a crown sitting on a head, and if you’re down and out and you hang your head low, it’s gonna fall off.

“So hold your head up high. Keep that halo up there.”

In a tweet following the release of this Genius video, Morris shared that she is obsessed with reading lyrics, so this assignment was perfect for her.M

Morris’ tour is scheduled to start on March 9 in Chicago.