Maren Morris is hard at work on a new album, but she’s not making fans wait for the album release to hear new music. The Grammy winner will release a duo of songs, under the collective project title The Bridge, on Friday (Sept. 15), she announced on Tuesday (Sept. 12).
The project contains the songs “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here.” Morris said in an Instagram post that the dual song release “honors where I’ve been and [sic] but also feels like a forward step into the sun.”
Morris added, “As I’ve been working on my record nonstop this year, I realized these two songs deserved a moment of their own – a story in their own right, written a day apart from each other – a tender duo and bridge to my next album. I welcome, celebrate and grieve the changes that have happened these last few years and these two songs say it better than I ever could in a caption or interview….hope you enjoy these. ‘Wherever I’m going, I hope I’m not the only one.’”
Based on the song title, it seems that “Get the Hell Out of Here” may be tied to an image Morris posted on Sept. 7, a visual that appeared may be positioned as a response to Jason Aldean’s recent controversial song “Try That in a Small Town.”
She captioned that post, “I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,” which was shared alongside a silent clip of a bucolic town with a billboard that reads, “Welcome to Our Perfect Small Town: From Sunrise to Sundown.” (Her rep did not respond to Billboard‘s request for comment at the time.)
Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” garnered both support and criticism due to lyrics that advise people to refrain from burning the American flag, disrespecting police and committing robberies in small towns. (Sample lyric: “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face/ Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, ya think you’re tough?/ Well, try that in a small town/ See how far ya make it down the road.”) “Try That in a Small Town” was written by Kelley Lovelace, Neil Thrasher, Tully Kennedy and Kurt Michael Allison. The song’s video was pulled from CMT, a move that sparked both support and backlash.
Following CMT’s decision, Aldean posted a message to his Instagram Stories regarding the contrasting reactions that the song and video have faced. The controversy helped propel consumption of the song and its video. The visual for “Try That in a Small Town” now has over 35 million views, while the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in late July; it is currently in the top 10 on the Country Airplay chart.
Morris’ upcoming full-length album will follow her 2022 project Humble Quest and her 2019 album GIRL, which won a CMA Award for album of the year. GIRL‘s key song, “The Bones,” won Morris single and song of the year honors in 2020, while Morris also picked up her first CMA female vocalist of the year win.
See her new music announcement below:
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