Written in the wake of a painful breakup, Middle of Nowhere sees Kacey Musgraves taking stock of her life and returning to her hometown of Golden, an abandoned railroad town in eastern Texas. Embracing change is a key theme that runs throughout the album’s 13 tracks, as the singer-songwriter fixates on life’s liminal spaces, whether it be the solitude of suddenly being single again or a small town in transition.
The pointedly titled Middle of Nowhere comes in the midst of what Musgraves describes as the longest single period of her life, and she’s clearly discovered the virtues of independence. On “Loneliest Girl” and the title track, she expresses her longing to go off grid: “It’s just me and me, and that’s all I need,” she declares on the latter. Musgraves’s bemused tone and the double entendres of songs like “Dry Spell”—“Ain’t nobody’s tool up in my shed…Ain’t nobody’s truck up in my drive”—wouldn’t sound out of place on a Sabrina Carpenter album.
Several songs showcase Musgraves’s knack for writing richly detailed character vignettes. “Back on the Wagon,” for one, presents a variation on the classic country drinking song, sung from the perspective a woman in love with a man struggling with alcoholism. She shares her hopes and fears with a friend and potential rival who doesn’t trust him. Musgraves sings, “I know he’s caused so much pain, but this time he’s changed,” as though she doesn’t really believe it.
Musgraves grapples with the expectation that women should be happier when they’re in romantic relationships on songs like “Uncertain, TX.” It’s a societal pressure that proves to be even more intense in the Southern towns where her songs are often set: “Abilene” is sung from the point of view of a woman who watches enviously as another woman suddenly flees town.
More so than 2021’s Star-Crossed and 2024’s Deeper Well, Middle of Nowhere embraces a neo-traditional country sound, with songs like the somber “Hell on Me” stripped down to just vocals, acoustic guitar, and pedal steel. Pedal steel, in fact, is treated like a second voice on the album, with economical solos that lean into the instrument’s ability to sound like sobbing or shouting.
Indeed, there’s a palpable melancholy to Middle of Nowhere’s songs, a mood that’s perfectly matched by the arrangements, which likewise vividly conjure the locations Musgraves sings about. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Kacey Musgraves album if it didn’t push beyond Nashville’s city limits, as it does on “Horses & Divorce,” a duet with Miranda Lambert that borrows from Mexican norteño music. If Musgraves seemed slightly adrift in the years since 2018’s Golden Hour, Middle of Nowhere marks a true homecoming.
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