Why I Left Country Music & Why I'm Coming Back To Kick Its Ass
The first entry to my new Substack, 'Rawdoggin Reality'
Have you ever loved somebody or something so much but you got the feeling they didn’t love you back? I know I sure have. In July of 2020, Esquire Magazine interviewed me and published an article with the title, “Margo Price Doesn’t Care if Country Music Likes Her, She’s Leaving It Behind.” As confident as I seemed in my decision, it broke my heart to read it. I joked, “Country Music to me is like a toxic ex boyfriend, I love it so much, but I fuckin needed some space.”
Country music was my first true love. It had been the best modality for my songwriting and storytelling and it felt so natural for my voice. I grew up hearing it through the transistor radio in my grandparents kitchen, in the backseat of a pick up truck and through the headphones of my walkman on a hissing cassette tape. The first vocal solo I ever got was in grade school was a cover of Patsy Cline’s ‘Walkin After Midnight’. Country music got me a deal with Third Man Records and it brought me to my first ever fan base. It was there for me when no one else was. I leaned on it like a crutch in my darkest days.
But there were downfalls, dangers, and disappointments. In 20I6, I burst on the scene and gave the music business a shot in the arm like penicillin. I wrote an album about my failures, my most painful life moments and bad luck memories. I wrote songs about my personal experiences as a woman living in Nashville and gave a middle finger to the country music establishment. Sure, I kicked some doors down, but as I approached the building, the gatekeepers didn’t invite me in. I was branded as “Americana”, which was essentially, the new Alt Country. Why folks like myself, Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers weren’t played on country radio or invited to the CMA’s made about as much sense as a screen door on a submarine. Maybe we weren’t licking the right boot- hell, maybe it’s because we weren’t licking anyone’s boot at all. Either way, it left a bad taste in my mouth
When I walked out of that door several years back, I kept it cracked. I never said I was leaving Country Music permanently, in fact, I made sure to mention that I would be returning at some point. Still, somewhere during the end of 2018, I could feel the muse carrying me into other territory. Maybe it was that I felt too much like an outsider in the country world, maybe I felt that I had squeezed every ounce of inspiration out of the genre that I could at the time, maybe it was the mushrooms... Regardless of the reasons, I drifted over the musical lines to follow my restless spirit wherever it led me.
I naively thought that if I moved over to playing rock music, that it would be more welcoming. I envisioned a place with less sexism, ageism and racism, but I was green and unfortunately wrong in that prediction. The history of rock and psychedelic music has also historically been led by humans with testosterone pumping through their veins, even though Rock and Roll itself was created by a Queer, black woman named Sister Rosetta Tharpe. There are only sixty-five women in the rock and roll hall of fame, while there are over seven hundred or so male inductees. That means that only a meager eight percent of women have been inducted.
Since its inception, the entire music industry has been riddled with sexism and it’s obviously a reflection of the world that we live in. Even as I have fiercely battled it on my way up, I still find myself in its chains. Whether it’s bloggers who have no journalistic degrees writing narrow minded think pieces on me, men in the comment sections on social media who enjoy tearing down my appearance because they don’t like my politics or business men in power trying to control my career and art, there’s no shortage of slanted, misogynistic opinions. In the country music world, there has also been at times, a very white washed view of what is or isn’t country. We are seeing a resurgence of racism and aggression from some folks (mostly hiding behind fake names online) who think Black people can’t play country music. I guess they didn’t get the memo that the banjo was born in Africa. I guess they never drew the connection that country music was born of the blues. I guess they never heard Linda Martell, Charley Pride or Alice Randall. I guess they never heard Tina Turner’s phenomenal work, “Tina Turns The Country On”, Ray Charles, “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” or Swamp Dogg’s, “Sorry You Couldn’t Make It” Beyonce is not the first Black woman to make country or Americana music and she won’t be the last. All I’m saying is, keep an open mind, or you might be missing out on some truly great artists like Valerie June, Miko Marks, Sunny War, Rhiannon Giddens, Adia Victoria, Allison Russell, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Brittany Spencer… the list goes on. I promise you, there is enough room for everybody.
I have a tendency to want to do the opposite of what people want of me. I’ve always questioned authority, my mom says I came into this world with a rebellious streak. As Loretta Lynn once said, “I believe in horoscopes, I was born under the sign of the ram, which means I’m headstrong, don’t like people telling me what to do.” Loretta and I’s birthday are just one day and fifty one years apart. She was born April 14th and mine is April 15th. I looked up to her in a way that’s hard to describe and I miss her like crazy. She became like a fairy Godmother to me in her last years on earth and I am grateful for each and every moment we shared. I have taken so many left turns in my career, that I was bound to lose some people. But I wouldn’t do it differently or change any of the records I’ve made if I could go back. I had to see what was down the rabbit hole, even if it was dark and scary. The mushroom trip that I took in twenty-twenty was transformative- musically, personally and spiritually. As they say, “Drugs lead no where but at least it’s the scenic route.”
When I first came on the scene, I was a countryfied, hard headed, whiskey drinkin nobody who was pissed off at the establishment. All of that’s still true, except for the whiskey drinkin part. If anything, now that I’ve lived for a while inside of the establishment, I’m even more pissed off. I’ve let some people go, I’m still fighting with others to let me be myself, but I know, I’m gonna make this next record the way I want to make it, no matter what it takes.
Here is a demo and the lyrics of a new song that I wrote called “Long Story Long.”
Country music to me is like a toxic ex boyfriend
Yes, he hurt me so bad and he bruised up my face
I stuck with him through the toils and dangers
And through condemnation, I offered him grace
I knew we’d eventually get back together
I love him so fucking much but I needed some space
So I took the kids and moved back in with my mama
Heartbreaks and hangovers only time can erase
I’m still hummin our favorite tune and replaying the words to our song
Let me tell you what you may already know, to make a long story long
Our love was just like poor Tammy and George
He was the only soul mate that I’d really known
but he knocked me up and let me down so hard
I had to raise my poor babies all on my own
I took a greyhound back to the midwest
found work in a dine to r outside Davenport
And he kept his job down at the factory
but you can bet your ass he never paid child support
He was a child himself, I don’t blame him for doing me wrong
Let me tell you a tale that’s older than time, to make a long story long
But my best friend Kate said she knew I’d go back
because I really loved him and I dreamed he like change
So I wrote him a sad song and put my whole heart in it
When he moved back in, she said I was deranged
I believed when he said “This time will be different”
Put a ring on my finger, now we were engaged
And maybe sometime in the not so distant future
My hunger and grief with all be assuaged
You might say I’m weak for taking him back, but others tell me I’m strong
Whatever the case, it still isn’t over, to make a long story long
Honey, I’m happy we’re together again
Let’s go out to the honky tonks and you can spin me around
Did the Tennessee waltz and that old Texas two step
I’m floating so high, I may never come down
Until the booze and the pills start making you angry
And all of the bills piled up, left the mortgage unpaid
But June didn’t quit on that old man in black
She stood by his side until he got straight
Why does somethin that feels so right, always turn out so wrong?
Let me tell you what you may already know, to make a long story long
Happy fucking Birthday, you’re a Goddess in your own right! Keep tearing down the critics, the keepers, and those rusty ol’ gates you never stop letting the rest of us through. You are an inspiration in the truest sense of the word, and I fucking love you.
Yes, there’s no doubt country music’s denial of its own roots in minstrelsy and the blues is a willed blindness, so as a lover too of both country music and rock ‘n roll, I feel similar mixed emotions about both genres. But if anyone knows how to play Country without reproducing the genre’s ugly supremacies, it’s you, Margo Price, and I applaud your return to it.
And thank you for the show you and your terrific band gave at First Avenue last year. I was ecstatic for days afterwards, remembering all the highlights. I loved your memoir as well. Blessings.