Margo Price Hopes “Letting Me Down” Will Lift Us Up

Although Margo Price had written and recorded her upcoming album prior to the pandemic, many of its messages are taking on deeper meanings in this era of isolation — and she’s sharing her hope that the music “will provide an escape of relief to someone who needs it.”

Upon announcing the July 10 release of That’s How Rumors Get Started, Price stated, “Take me back to the day I started trying to paint my masterpiece so I could warn myself of what was ahead. Time has rearranged, it has slowed down, it has manipulated things like it always does…the words to some of these songs have changed meaning, they now carry heavier weight.”

She added, “I’ve seen the streets set ablaze, the sky set on fire. I’ve been manic, heartbroken for the world, heartbroken for the country, heartbroken from being heartbroken again and again. This album is a postcard of a landscape of a moment in time. It’s not political but maybe it will provide an escape or relief to someone who needs it. Sending love to everyone out there and hope I see you down the highway.”

In conjunction with the announcement, Price revealed her music video for “Letting Me Down,” about two teenage runaways trying to escape a workaday life. She wrote the song with Jeremy Ivey to a pair of former high school friends. Sturgill Simpson provides background vocals on the track.

Director Kimberly Stuckwisch drove an RV from Los Angeles to Nashville to film the video in Price’s home and an abandoned hospital. Price’s dance sequence was choreographed by her sister Kylie.

With social distancing in mind, Stuckwisch says, “We bought a cheap ’80s travel trailer with a bathroom, kitchen, and a propane powered refrigerator, so we wouldn’t have to go inside anywhere for food or bathrooms. We were able to abide by the 6-feet social distance CDC recommendation as we set up a remote head for the camera that we operated from a closet outside of the room.”

She added, “We wore masks the entire time and Margo supplied us with multiple bottles of hand sanitizer and spiked seltzers. We parked our RV in her driveway and worked solely out of there and the room we were filming in. We wanted to speak to what was going on at that moment, to a world that was/is shut down, to the fear we all feel, and to the hope of breaking free.”

On Saturday, June 13, Price will perform “Letting Me Down” and two other songs, and sit for an interview with Anthony Mason on CBS This Morning: Saturday. These performances with Price and her bandmates were filmed on their Nashville porches, doorsteps, and stoops.

That’s How Rumors Get Started was produced by Sturgill Simpson, and co-produced by Margo Price and David Ferguson. The ten new, original songs were primarily recorded at EastWest Studios (Pet Sounds, “9 to 5”), during the week she received her Best New Artist Grammy nomination, in the middle of her pregnancy with daughter Ramona. The album is her debut for Loma Vista Recordings.

That’s How Rumors Get Started Track List

“That’s How Rumors Get Started”
“Letting Me Down”
“Twinkle Twinkle”
“Stone Me”
“Hey Child”
“Heartless Mind”
“What Happened to Our Love?”
“Gone to Stay”
“Prisoner of the Highway”
“I’d Die for You”