A heartfelt celebration of womanhood and a horny declaration of desperation just snapped me out of my dry spell, and they’re both immediate contenders for 2026 Single of the Year.
“Woman”
Kane Brown
Written by Kane Brown, John Byron, Ashley Gorley, Ben Johnson, and Taylor Phillips
“Dry Spell”
Kacey Musgraves
Written by Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, Kacey Musgraves, and Josh Osborne
I’ve been singing the praises of Kane Brown for six years now, and every time this man drops a record, he keeps proving me right. His ability to borrow from multiple genres while remaining primarily anchored in country music is, for me, the realization of everything I hoped nineties country would evolve into over time.
As great of a singer and songwriter as he is, though, why I’ve really gravitated toward him so much has been his fundamental decency and spirit of inclusivity, which is most evident on record when he sings about women.
“Woman” is one of his best efforts yet in that vein. On first listen, I immediately connected it to one of my favorite songs from last year: “Little Lady,” the raucous Trisha Yearwood cut where she growls in the chorus about how her man “likes his woman full grown.”
Leave it to Brown to sing this from the guy’s perspective, as he dismisses his friends who want to go out looking for girls, all acting “like they ain’t gettin’ older,” because he’s got a full grown woman at home. He loves his friends, but he’s not going out with them…and he can’t wait for them to head out so he can be alone with her.
When he sings “and she’s got a man,” he’s tapping into what I can only call domestic horniness, a specific kind of country song from back in the day that was done best by Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich (and worst by T.G. Sheppard and Trace Adkins.)
The PG-13 nature of “I’d Love to Lay You Down” and “Behind Closed Doors” are what made them subversive for their day. “Woman” is rated PG at best. He doesn’t sing about what they’re gonna do at home, even though it’s implicit that he’s looking for the same happy ending as his buddies tonight.
But he sings about a woman, not a girl, and it’s clear he’s singing about a woman he respects and reveres. She’s not an ornament or a trophy. She’s not even wife number two. She’s a woman, W-O-M-A-N, and a real man won’t settle for anything less. In 2026, a man emphatically making that statement at all is what feels subversive, as the trad wife of today, celebrated for her submissiveness, is presented by most male radio acts as the ideal.
Brown, with a wide smile on his face and a real woman by his side, calls them out for what they are simply through the power of contrast. This is authentic manhood, and these boys cosplaying as country outlaws look awfully small in comparison.
Brown is already spoken for, but he’s the kind of guy that Kacey Musgraves has been needing for 335 days on “Dry Spell,” especially since the last time wasn’t even good.
Where Brown draws on the sultry bedroom hits of his male predecessors and makes them a bit more family friendly, Musgraves revives the subtle double entendres of “Shake the Sugar Tree” and euphemistic carnal references of “Strawberry Wine” for a record that is far more direct in its demand for gratification than those earlier records could’ve dared to be.
“Dry Spell” is a flat out filthy record. Musgraves laments that she’s “lonely with a capital ‘H’” and that “ain’t nobody’s tool up in my shed.” Musgraves’ fundamental disinterest in catering to country radio allows for such liberated songwriting, but don’t get it confused: this is what country radio should be playing today, had it not abandoned the legacy of the nineties women that dominated much of that decade creatively and commercially.
This is the same kind of “girl, I see you” record that goes back as far as “It Wasn’t God Who Makes Honky Tonk Angels.” Wells was chastised at the time for daring to sing about the kind of woman you’d find in a bar. She certainly never imagined that one of her successors would say “girl, I see you” to those lonely ladies out there sitting on their washing machines, but you know what? It’s still three chords and the truth.
I don’t care much about what happens on country radio these days. It’s never been less significant in the role of an artist being successful. But I can’t help but imagine an alternative timeline where Brown and Musgraves are more representative of the genre’s gender politics, and where country music was still being made for adults, instead of being the holding pen for overgrown manchildren and their seen but not heard wives.
“Woman” and “Dry Spell” both get an A.
I wish Kane’s song had at least a little bit of detail about the woman he wants to spend his time with. The concept is nice and he’s certainly not ‘bro country,’ but the song is still vague in its depiction of a woman.