Check Out The New Single From The Country Supergroup Made Of Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby And Amanda Shires.

Welcome to Song of the Day, where we hip you to all the new local releases you should be caring about. By highlighting one new North Texas-sprung tune every week day, our hope is that you’ll find something new to love about the rich and abundant DFW music scene five days a week.

The Highwomen – “Redesigning Women”
RIYL: Smashing the patriarchy and using its remains to fuel a bonfire.
What Else You Should Know: Country music has historically been a boy’s club, but throughout its history, there have been women who weren’t afraid to throw tear gas canisters in the treehouse. Even with Maybelle and Sara Carter being some of country music’s earliest and most influential pioneers, there were still plenty of patriarchy remains to be smashed.

In 1952, Kitty Wells wrote a controversial song called “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” which defended women who cheated on their unfaithful husbands. In 1975, Loretta Lynn wrote a pro-birth control song titled “The Pill”, and country music stations everywhere refused to play it. We’ve come a long way since then, but disparities are far from latent, and it makes even more women-empowerment anthems necessary.

North Texas native Maren Morris has teamed up with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires on a song that achieves exactly that; The result is the Dave Cobb-produced “Redesigning Women”.

On this single, the quartet, performing under the name “The Highwomen,” explores the stereotypes and standards that women have often been confined to, in snippets such as:

  • “Rosie the Riveter with renovations / And always gets better with wine”
  • “Running the world while we’re cleaning up the kitchen”
  • “Changing our minds like we change our hair color”
  • “If the shoe fits, we’re gonna buy 11”

They appear to allude to these in tongue-in-cheek ways while also taking pride in their work ethic and sense of style. In other passages, the message of empowerment is more explicit:

  • “A critical reason there’s a population / Raising eyebrows and a generation”
  • “Made in God’s image, just a better version”
  • “Some of us are saints, and some of us are surgeons”
  • “When we love someone, we take ‘em to Heaven”

What makes this song and this assemblage of marquee talent even more badass is the name of the group itself, which pays homage to the Highwaymen, a supergroup which featured Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Trying to continue the tradition of such legends is a tall order — Morris, Carlile, Hemby and Shires do it perfectly.

The Highwomen will release its self-titled debut album on September 26, and boasts features from Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell, Miranda Lambert, Lori McKenna and others.

Shires’ acrobatic backflip in the music video alone should be enough to hold you over until then.

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