On this special episode of The Kelleigh Bannen Show, Maren Morris joins Kelleigh for an interview to have an in-depth discussion about some of the tracks from her new album ‘Humble Quest.’ Throughout the hour, Maren shares stories behind the music, from writing a song on the day she found out she was pregnant with her son to writing a song about her producer’s terminal diagnosis before he passed away. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.
*Maren recently announced ‘Humble Quest Radio’, a new weekly radio series airing on Apple Music 1 and Apple Music Country where she’ll bounce between disc jockey, therapist, confidante, warm shoulder, and best friend as she responds to questions, queries, and comments from fans submitted via her Humble Quest HQ Hotline paired with themed playlists tailored to each episode. Humble Quest Radio premieres on Apple Music 1 on tomorrow, March 29th at 2:00p PST and encores on Wednesday, March 30th at 3:00p PST on Apple Music Country. Tune in live for free at apple.co/_HumbleQuestRadio or listen anytime on-demand with an Apple Music subscription.
Maren Morris on Finding Out She Was Pregnant the Day She Wrote “Hummingbird”
MAREN: I was so excited because I had already told Ryan [Hurd] [that I was pregnant], the most important person of this equation… I told him, I was like, “I’m on my way to this, write. I mean, I’m not canceling, it’s the Love Junkies.” So I showed up.
KELLEIGH: Were you surprised?
MAREN: We had been trying. So it wasn’t a shock, but it was like very, yeah, just the day of, I’d taken a thousand tests. And so this one was the one and I happened to be writing that day. So it felt like it was in the stars, but I got to Liz [Rose’s] house and we were standing around her island and we kind of chit chat, catch up and I was like, “I have something to share. I am pregnant. I just found out 30 minutes ago.” And they all flipped out. Like Hillary [Lindsey], they’re all like, “Oh, I wish we could have some wine, but you’re pregnant.” But yeah, it was such an amazing group of people to be with because they’re all mothers. I mean, Lori [McKenna] has five kids, but they’re all just the best poets I think in town.
Maren Morris on Coming Up With The Idea for Writing “Hummingbird”
I think we just got to chatting about … Hillary [Lindsey] was like, “Oh, I said the word hummingbird. You’ve got all these hummingbirds, Liz [Rose], at your place.’ And I was like, “I love hummingbirds.” My first tattoo was a hummingbird, my first guitar that was mine was a Gibson Hummingbird, which was a gift from my parents on my 18th birthday. And I think it was Hillary or Lori [McKenna], one of them that was like, “We have to write that. That’s such a crazy thing.” And like, “You’ve got a little hummingbird.” Like heartbeats.
Maren Morris on Writing “What Would This World Do?” After Finding Out busbee’s Terminal Diagnosis
I honestly felt like a child doing that vocal. I felt like my inner child was giving that performance because I was so raw with it, and I knew that we weren’t going to layer a ton of stuff on it. It was also probably the most vulnerable song I’d ever written with Ryan [Hurd] and our friend, Jon Green, who was also very close. Yeah. Amazing. But he was super, super close with busbee. And I mean, I cried all through the writing of that song because it was like you have this hope that these people, when you get bad news, terminal news, they’re like Superman, and he was so young. I was like, “He’s going to pull through,” and then at the back of your mind, you just kind of know the reality check, and so you’re like, “What can I do except for write a song, and maybe this energy will come out, and he’ll hear it.” Or I don’t know. Maybe it will get to him. You don’t know. And this was maybe a month or two before he passed.
Maren Morris on Honoring busbee By Ending Her Album with “What Would This World Do?”
When you talk about losing a… What’s the saying? When you take a picture, you lose a little bit of your soul. I feel like when you write, when I wrote that song, I truly lost a piece of myself and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to perform it live. I’ve done it once and could barely get through it, and I just think ending this record with that song the way it was, was the most respectful, I hope, way to honor his life and what he did for, not just me, but Ryan [Hurd], Jon Green, Nashville. Nashville as a sound. He really changed the last decade of the way we sound.
