Elle King: Gone Country

Confining Elle King is an impossible task. 

The title of her country debut, Come Get Your Wife, was born after she was “running her mouth” around a group of “well-respected” men in the music industry. One of them took offense to a vaguely off-color joke from King and yelled the titular phrase at her partner. 

Not only did King not bow in the moment, but she used it as the onus for her raucous, “rhinestone-and-fringe”-covered leap into the country space. Those who have the gall to try and confine King to their expectations, expect her to run in the opposite direction, blazing a fierce and formidable path in her wake. 

The sonic direction of Come Get Your Wife is similarly expectation-defying. King first found herself on the world stage thanks to the 2015 No. 1 anthem “Ex’s and Oh’s.” Though the hit earned her success in both the rock and pop worlds, King—who doesn’t seem the type to settle into her comfort zones—opted not to take the easy route. 

[RELATED: Review: Elle King Jumps Into Country Headfirst With ‘Come Get Your Wife’]

She first moved toward the country genre with Dierks Bentley in 2016 on a song called “Different For Girls” and found the genre was equally as good a fit. A few years later, she enjoyed a No. 1 alongside Miranda Lambert with “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home),” upping her stake in the gilded streets of Nashville. 

For King, the move into country was a chance for her to be at her most vulnerable. “I knew that I wanted to open up more about my life,” she says. 

“I hope people just give it a chance,” she adds. “This album has brought me great joy. I’m telling more about my life. If people care to know more about me, then they can listen and understand.”

Elle King Photo by Matthew Berinato

From her tapestry of tattoos to her piercings and smoky vocals, everything about King points away from the typical model of a modern country star. But, when looking to King’s roots, the shift in genre makes all the sense in the world. The opening track on Come Get Your Wife, “Ohio” uncovers those roots and became a unifying factor in the creative process as a result. 

“It wasn’t until I wrote the song ‘Ohio’ that everything came together,” she says. “Songwriting for me has always been about me figuring out my feelings. So when I wrote that song, everything just kind of clicked and it became this love letter to my family.

“Now that I’m a mother, it’s also smoothing out a lot of my childhood stuff,” she continues. “I don’t know if I have ever really opened that box. It has been such a freeing, beautiful experience for me. I don’t think that I could have had that experience if it weren’t for country music.”

Find me singin’ on the back porch swingin’ / Cur dogs barkin’ left my dip in the kitchen, she sings over a simple banjo riff. “Ohio” is truly the curtain opening for Come Get Your Wife. From the first few seconds, the listener is immediately dropped into King’s hometown—all the rural accoutrements in tow. 

With her background accounted for, King lays out the rest of her journey and revels in her successes along the way in “Lucky.” I’ve been a runner / I’ve been a fighter / I’ve been the fuse / Hell, I’ve been the lighter … Gotta thank God that this ole life ain’t fair / There’s only one way to explain how I got here, she sings. 

The track shares its name with King’s son, whom she credits for helping her to finally put things into perspective. 

“Having my son in my life totally lit a fire under my ass,” she says. “I really need to make this life great for my son and for my family. Having him loosened up a lot of my barriers that I put up. I just got out of my own way.

“He has brought me so much joy that it has spread to every aspect of my life,” she adds. “All of my dreams have come true in becoming a mother and how that affects everything in my life has been beautiful.”

[RELATED: Elle King on ‘Come Get Your Wife’: “Country Music Felt Like Home”]

As to what advice King learned from making this vulnerable album? “Don’t get in your head,” she says. 

“Don’t get in the way of the song. Sometimes you just have to let it come out. Turn down that really loud voice in your head that says your ideas are terrible. Just make it fun, keep it light, or dig super deep and be open. 

“When I started co-writing with other people, I had to learn that it’s OK to put an idea on the table and have somebody say no to it,” she continues. “That was something that I took as an attack on my spirit back in the day. It definitely doesn’t have to be like that. I’m still working on it.

“The most important thing is to be true to your own voice and your own narrative,” she adds. “The more open and honest and vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to reach someone or catch something nobody else has done, because there is only one you—you have to tell your story.” 

While this album has driven King to be more vulnerable in her own songwriting, it also is one of the first times King has gotten songs from other writers. 

Bringing in outside voices started as a necessity for King. “I had just had a baby, so I didn’t have the emotional capacity to split my emotions between being a mom and my creative process,” she says. “I don’t want to do anything half-assed.” 

But, after hearing the wealth of talent that Nashville had to offer, King quickly became inspired by the possibilities. Each of the songs penned by others on Come Get Your Wife were chosen because they felt like something King would have written herself. A few tweaks here and there, and songs like “Tulsa” feel like they couldn’t have come from any other source. 

“‘Tulsa’ came from a genius named Ella Langley,” King says of the 23-year-old Alabama-native singer/songwriter. “I don’t have that much confidence at the age I am now. She is so brave, badass, and hilarious.”

The song is an undisputed standout from the record. The chorus is a cleverly coded dig at “that one girl we all know.”And I ain’t talkin’ Oklahoma / ‘Cause it ain’t what you think / But if you spell it back-to-front, you gonna know what I mean / He went back to Tulsa, she sings. (In case you need help figuring it out, Tulsa spelled backward is “a slut.”) 

Despite the harsh berating, King says it all comes in good fun. 

“We just laughed our asses off when we came up with that one,” she says. “I don’t ever want to attack women or take any steps backward for us, so I wanted to take a moment in the song and be smart and say, ‘It’s not you. It’s the guy’s fault. I’m warning you because it is probably going to happen to you.’”

Langley also penned “Out Yonder” for the record, which has King singing about leaving drama behind: It’s all this he-said, she-said / Always two sides and the truth / There’s so much shit around these parts / Gonna get some on your boots.

Though the album meanders through a number of themes, they all represent facets of King’s story. From introspective ballads to dance-inducing anthems, King hopes the album can bare all her shades. 

“I just really wanted this to be authentically me—a celebration of how I have felt coming into the country world,” she says. “I’ve felt so myself, welcomed and accepted. So I wanted to double down on that.

“It’s cool to see my storytelling and my songwriting come out in different ways,” she continues. “My producer, Ross Copperman, was instrumental in helping me find that voice. He opened my eyes to how things can be.

“I remember when I was starting to make records, I would think about how the Strokes records always had one cohesive sound and I never knew if I could find that,” she adds. “I do feel like this is the first record that has a sonic blanket over it. It’s a comfy, cozy, and country one.”

While she aimed for the album to be an apt introduction for those less familiar with her journey, she hopes it will work on multiple levels. 

“If people don’t care to go deep, it’s also just very fun to listen to,” she says. “It can tell a story, or it could be a record you just put on in the background to dance, cry, or make out with somebody.”

King felt a freedom to explore, perhaps more so than ever before on this record. She felt the anxiety over the end result melt away and relaxed into the process.  

“I look forward to seeing what people think, but I’ve tried to release myself from the outcome of it,” she says. “That has been a beautiful thing because I often put a lot of pressure on myself in every aspect of my life.

“If the listener connects with it, then they realize that they’re not the only person who feels that way,” she continues. “That is a reminder to me that I’m not the only person that feels the way I do. It’s this beautiful, symbiotic connection. It’s my favorite thing about music.”

Though King is treading relatively new waters on Come Get Your Wife, it still feels like an Elle King album—for multiple reasons. For one, her raspy, unique vocals cannot be mistaken when they are coming through the speakers. Secondly, it seems King can’t help but imbue her personality into her work, to the extent that listeners feel like they know her on a one-on-one level despite the work being made for the masses. 

[RELATED: Elle King Suffers Concussion, Cancels String of Radio Shows]

Thirdly, King makes connections between the rock and pop influences she let guide her early on in her career and the space she is in now. Instead of shedding those references entirely, she keeps them in as flourishes in an otherwise deeply countrified album. 

“I’ve done rock. I’ve done pop. I now understand that all of that fits into what country is,” she says. “This album still sounds like an Elle King album to me. It all works and fits beautifully underneath the umbrella of country.”

In celebration of the record, King hit the road on a trek she has dubbed the A-Freakin-Men Tour. Many tracks on Come Get Your Wifeseem like they were tailor-made for a live run, but the one King is most excited to play is “Try Jesus.” 

“Try Jesus” is yet another chapter in the King story. While King isn’t afraid to lean into her messier sides on the record, this particular track sees her strive for salvation. Mama’s been prayin’ / I’d do some changin’ / After all this heartbreakin’ / It’s finally got me thinkin’ I should / Try Jesus, she sings. 

“‘Try Jesus’ is the one I’m really excited about but there are so many songs on the album that I’m psyched to play,” she says. “It’s really exciting to plan and figure out how the new album fits in the setlist—what story you want to tell.”

If anything universal can be gleaned from Come Get Your Wife, it is that King is a storyteller. Though that skill has been present throughout her career, it seems country has given her the same “three chords and the truth” mentality it affords to all of its stewards. King capitalizes on it to great appeal. 

Confining King is an impossible task. She needs multiple genres, an expansive album, and the freedom to say what she wants to fully encapsulate her bounds. Come Get Your Wifeis a stunning example of what King can accomplish when she is given that opportunity. 

Photo by Matthew Berinato / Press On PR