Single Review: Kacey Musgraves, “The Trailer Song”

Kacey Musgraves the Trailer SongA new Kacey Musgraves track with co-writes from Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally is not a bad way to start your day.

“The Trailer Song” has been a live staple for Musgraves, and it sounds like a lost cut from her Grammy-winning album.  It’s a humorous song, but it’s neither satire nor novelty.

That’s important to me.  I like that she gives her characters the dignity that their social and economic status usually denies them.  Country music should be their voice, and Musgraves is one of the only ones out there really singing about them.  Tellin’ it like it is, as Loretta Lynn might say.

Anyway, “The Trailer Song” is a cool, funny song about putting a nosy neighbor in her place, while also finding enough creative ways to discuss adult situations that it’s safe for the kiddies to listen to.

Written by Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, and Kacey Musgraves

Grade: B+

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ugS08zy1cA

6 Comments

  1. I like the putting the nosy neighbor in her place theme. Good song.

    Every time I hear the album title “Same Trailer, Different Park” and now “The Trailer Song”, I think of a great short story collection by Russell Banks called “Trailerpark”. I read it for the second time a few months ago.

  2. I really, really like Kacey Musgraves. She is brilliant. And I like the fact that she gets a lot of attention without much radio airplay. I love the fact that she is releasing artistic material. And while her work has a certain edge to it, there is something about much of her music that just sounds like excellent songwriting demos. I don’t know if it’s the quiet softness of the production/sound that I react negatively to. I felt the same about her album ( and I know that I am apparently the only one). I love singer-songwriters like Nanci Griffith and Kathleen Edwards, but there is something about Kacey’s releases that lack a certain finishing touch to make them sound like big hits. I can’t even exactly put my finger on what I find missing from her work. This is a funny, fun, and crisp song. However, this does not feel like a single to me. It sounds like singer-songwriter night trying out great material at the Bluebird. And that’s not a bad thing. I just don’t see this as a single.

  3. @Martin – to be blunt, i don’t think Kacey is a strong vocalist. I could listen to Brandy Clark all night but not Kacey. When the Trailer Park album came out, I listened to the i-Tunes preview a few times but didn’t like the sound of most of the songs so I only bought two. When I go to the Bluebird I have different expectations of the performers who are primarily songwriters so the lack of strong vocals doesn’t bother me like it would on a cd.

  4. I agree that Brandy Clark has the stronger voice of te two, but I will say that we just saw Kacey open for Alison and Willie and she was really good and two of the things that I noted is that she engaged the large audience better than I thought she would have and that her voice was a lot stronger than it sounds on record, which is an unusual thing to hear. People around us were even commenting on how good her voice was. One person even said it had hints of Dolly in it (she was singing Dolly’s “Here You Come Again”), though I don’t know if I would’ve gone that far. Her live band was also full, country and good. If anything, seeing her live made me more of a fan than I already was.

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