MAREN MORRIS ON WHY SHE CHOSE “CIRCLES AROUND THIS TOWN” AS FIRST SINGLE TO COUNTRY RADIO (AUDIO & VIDEO)
“I chose Circles as the first single for this record because well, it starts the album. So it kind of starts this story. And it was just fun. And I feel like, you know, sonically, I needed to hear that from myself. I think after coming off of singles like “Girl” and “The Bones” as precious as those songs are to me into my heart, they were kind of on the the more heavy side. Sonically, I mean, not like just emotionally. But I am I wanted to do something light and fun and just to kind of drive around to and I think we achieved it. And everything that followed suit from the album artwork to the music video for Circles. Just all reminded me of those kind of pioneer days of me trying to get a record deal and a publishing deal in Nashville nine years ago.”
“Circles Around This Town” Official Music Video
Grammy-winning superstar Maren Morris’ new album, Humble Quest, is slated for release on March 25 on Sony Music Nashville’s Columbia Nashville imprint—pre-add/pre-save it here. The album features lead single, “Circles Around This Town, ” released last week, which is the most-added single at country radio this week and broke Amazon Music’s record for most streams for a country song debut by a female artist. Rolling Stone praised the track’s “ambling groove that’s unhurried and bolstered by a grunge-lite guitar riff.”
Read Maren’s conversation with The New York Times about the making of Humble Questhere.
Maren began writing the songs on Humble Quest in the beginning of the pandemic as a series of major life changes unfolded—new motherhood, an upended career, the death of beloved friend and collaborator Michael Busbee and more, further compounded by lockdown. She felt control over life quickly slipping until she had a freeing realization—she was never in control in the first place. It’s from this place of personal truth and clarity amid darkness that Maren’s most genuine songs yet began to flow, creating an important distraction from the times rather than a snapshot of them.
Maren found herself reckoning with humility in ways she’d never imagined as she thought about how the goal of appearing humble puts artists, especially women, in a box with unrealistic demands to keep them small. Humble Quest documents Maren’s journey to redefining humility on her own terms as a grounded state of understanding one’s own truth rather than the capacity to appear authentic to others.
Produced by frequent collaborator Greg Kurstin (Adele, Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters) and written alongside her husband Ryan Hurd, Julia Michaels, Jimmy Robbins, Natalie Hemby, Laura Veltz and Jon Green on Busbee’s piano, Humble Quest finds Maren on a journey to embrace the imperfections in her life through snapshots of her rises and falls, overshares, lullabies, wine-soaked conversations with one old friend and a final goodbye to another one. “Am I humble enough now?” Maren asks herself sometimes. “Maybe. Or maybe I still haven’t found it yet. Or maybe, who cares as long as your friends and, most importantly, you know what your heart is all about? But here’s to taking the quest to find out.”
In addition, Maren is nominated for two Grammy awards this year: Best Country Song for “Better Than We Found It” and Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “Chasing After You,” the No. 1, Platinum-certified collaboration with her husband Ryan Hurd.
One of music’s brightest stars, Maren released her massively acclaimed, record-shattering album GIRL in 2019, one of country’s most celebrated albums that year which spawned smash hits including the four times Platinum-certified, Grammy-nominated “The Bones;” and the Platinum-certified No.1 title track. Maren won 2021 ACM Awards for Female Artist of the Year—for the second year in a row—and Song of the Year and three trophies at the 2020 CMA Awards. GIRL arrived three years after Maren’s breakout, Platinum-certified debut album HERO, for which she won countless accolades including Grammy, ACM and CMA Awards.
MAREN MORRIS—HUMBLE QUEST
1. Circles Around This Town
2. The Furthest Thing
3. I Can’t Love You Anymore
4. Humble Quest
5. Background Music
6. Nervous
7. Tall Guys
8. Detour
9. Hummingbird
10. Good Friends
11. What Would This World Do
Media Contacts:
Allen Brown
Sony Music Nashville
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Carla Sacks, Cami Opere, Reid Kutrow, and Asha Goodman
Sacks & Co.
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