The span between Maren Morris’ fifth and sixth albums—Girl (2019) and Humble Quest (2022)—was a time of massive change for the Nashville-based singer/songwriter. She gave birth to her first child, her son Hayes, lost a close friend and collaborator in Michael James Ryan Busbee, who died of brain cancer, and dealt with the loss of work that came with the pandemic.
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These monumental shifts in Morris’ life led her to re-examine her identity and priorities, and that process is reflected in themes she explored in Humble Quest. “Circles Around This Town” kicks off the album, and fittingly, it’s a flashback to her arrival in Nashville from Texas and her struggles to make it in the country music business. It’s a lot more difficult to chart one’s course forward without looking back first, so Morris sets up her “humble quest” with this reminiscence of her earliest years in Music City.
Success Through Persistence and Luck
Right from the first verse, Morris provides the setting for her arrival in Nashville at the age of 20. At this point, she had already released two albums on the independent Mozzi Bozzi label, but she had yet to find commercial success….
I swear I don’t know how I trusted
A Montero with the AC busted
A couple bad demos on a burned CD
Would take me all the way to Tennessee
… or even experience rejection.
Hadn’t heard the sound of a door slam yet
Thank God I was an optimist
In the span of 30 seconds, Morris uses the chorus to establish three aspects of her climb towards country music stardom. She sings about her ambition, which led her to “drive circles around this town.” Morris also makes it clear that she wasn’t in it just for money and recognition; she was Trying to say something with meaning / Something worth singing about. She winds up the chorus acknowledging that she did find success, but having chased it, she now realizes it hasn’t changed anything.
I’ve been kind and I’ve been ruthless
Yeah, I got here, but the truth is
Thought when I hit it, it’d all look different
But I still got the pedal down
Driving circles around this town
In the second and final verse, Morris reminds us that her success was not inevitable, letting us know that So many times, I thought about leaving. She chalks her eventual breakthrough up to persistence and luck with the line, Hung around long enough to catch a break. In referencing her first two singles, “My Church” and “80s Mercedes,” with the lines A couple hundred songs and the ones that finally worked / Was the one about a car and the one about a church, she may be suggesting that it could have been some other pairing of songs that got her noticed. It just happened to be these two that “worked.”
About “Circles Around This Town”’s Other Songwriters
Morris co-wrote “Circles Around This Town” with her now-ex-husband, Ryan Hurd, Julia Michaels and Jimmy Robbins. Hurd is a country recording artist who has also co-written songs for Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Lady A, Luke Bryan, Toby Keith, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts, and Hinder. Hurd also co-wrote three other songs on Humble Quest, as well as tracks from Morris’ previous two albums, Hero and Girl. His 2021 album, Pelago, peaked at No. 11 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums charts and No. 71 on the Billboard 200, and included his duet with Morris, “Chasing After You,” which went to No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Julia Michaels is a pop recording artist who reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her single, “Issues,” in 2017. She has also co-written songs for numerous notable recording artists, including Britney Spears, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Pink, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Gwen Stefani, and Janelle Monáe.
Jimmy Robbins is a country and pop songwriter and producer who has co-written songs for Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Kelly Clarkson, Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line, and Idina Menzel, among many others. Robbins won a CMA Song of the Year award for co-writing Morris’ song “The Bones,” and he has won CMA’s Musical Event of the Year for co-writing “We Were Us” by Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert and “Half of My Hometown” by Kelsea Ballerini featuring Kenny Chesney.
The Impact of “Circles Around This Town”
In January 2022, “Circles Around This Town” became Morris’ 12th entry on the Billboard Hot 100. Though it peaked at No. 52, its 25 weeks on the chart made it her single with the fourth-longest tenure on the chart. The song also reached the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, peaking at No. 9 in both rankings. “Circles Around This Town” was certified Gold in October 2022, and the song received 2023 Grammy nominations for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance.
“Circles Around This Town” recaps Morris’ first decade-plus in Nashville, but it doesn’t point listeners forward to her next direction. That’s a step that Morris took more than a year later when she released her two-track EP, The Bridge. With the lyrics from “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here,” she signaled her intention to move on from country music. Musically, we have yet to see where Morris will go next, but she’s already let us know that wherever she’s going, she’s still “got the pedal down.”
Photo by Natasha Moustache/Getty Images
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