Beyond the ascendent singing voice and the band-leading prowess, songwriting is where Murray shines, and her growth is evident song by song. A turn of phrase, a twisted cliché turned into a late-night epic, lyrics that ride the melodies, and melodies that wrap the words: these vignettes, as she calls them, level a new playing field and raise a new bar for a Nashville scene in which Murray has been a shining star for years. We found so much packed into this album, we decided to have the singer songwriter sit down and tell it herself. Here's Kristina, going song by song.

Schuyler Howie, Nashville, November 2023

YOU GOT ME

This one we did at Muscle Shoals. There are a couple of tracks on the record we had already been playing out, and this is one of them. So we kind of already had the feel in the groove for it, and so in the studio it was just about finessing it. I’m really kind of averse to love songs, but that’s what this is. I think if they’re not done well, they’re really cheesy. I mean, there are some amazing love songs out there, but I have a hard time writing them, so I’m proud of this one. No secrets, it’s about my boyfriend Corey Parsons, another musician. He’s been a big part of not only my life but also my musical journey. We met in 2017 and have been together since. I was a little nostalgic I guess one day and was thinking about that first early period of being together. It’s pretty true to life. The second time we hung out, he had this Chuck Berry tape in his car, which I wrote in. It’s– “Put on Back To Memphis,”… “I Do Really Love You.” That’s real. 

The whole record has got these little Easter eggs for people to find. The kiss out behind the bar—that’s true. And musically, I really love this groove. My guitar player, Jamie Mitchell, lives near me. I asked him during the pandemic to come over and fuck around with some ideas. I had a few voice memos. I was talking about Garth Hudson and clavinets and Jamie was like, “I don’t play piano, but here’s what it would sound like on the guitar.” And I was like, that’s it, that’s it. So that’s kind of where that hook comes from. Which I love.

I think it’s pretty swampy and I, again, like it because it’s a love song that’s not cheesy. And because it’s about Corey; I needed it to be extra fucking cool because he’s a cool fucking dude, you know? We both like the Dead and The Band and all that, so you can kind of hear a lot of that coming in there. He came down with me and my band to Muscle Shoals to hang in the studio and take photos and stuff, so I had him play congas on that track, which I love that he contributed to that one. So yeah, that’s the love song on the record; if you go through my other two records, I guess I’m only allowed one love song per record. And that’s “You Got Me.” You know, thinking about it, it is emotional not only because, yeah, my band and I are going to that famous corner of North Alabama to record my songs with this amazing producer who invited me and believes in me. And my boyfriend’s here, you know, just like all of that. It felt magical in that sense. I can hear all of that in that recording.

Acoustic guitar: Kristina Murray

Electric guitar: Sean Thompson

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Keys: Hank Long

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Tim Kuras

Percussion: Corey Parsons

BGV: Miss Tess

Magnus Ragnhall. Austin, March 2025

HAS BEEN

This song was recorded in Nashville at Music City Studio B. This one was the last song we recorded there. Going into the session, ‘Has Been’ was very bare bones. It came to life in the studio. I had the chord progression and the lyrics, but I did not really have a sonic framework for that one. So to have it be the last song we recorded, and to have it turn out as great as it turned out is really such a nice little surprise. Corey, and by proxy myself, we were both in a big Dire Straits phase for a minute there circa 2021, so I was looking for that kind of slinky vibe and slick sound production, and like some of those Keith Whitley records I love as well. So as we were putting it together, I just wanted it to be super vibey. I love the downbeat on that one. And it’s another somewhat autobiographical story, in three separate parts. When I think about it now, there’s a lot of self-pity on this track, which feels a little bit embarrassing, but it’s true for that moment. We’re products of the times, and well, hopefully I can write about it in a purposeful way. That second verse, “She could’ve been somebody with a little bit of luck and some money.” I mean, that’s basically how I’ve felt the last ten years of living in Nashville. And another line in there, I always call this the Medusa line. I was reading an article several years ago about how women are often villainized, how the villain in the story is often a woman. The first being Adam and Eve, of course. But then you see it also in almost every Disney movie. Witches. Scarlet Letters. Yoko Ono and Lennon. Lorrie Morgan and Keith Whitley. Tammy and George. I wanted to turn it on its head because sure seems like a superpower to be able to turn men into stone with one look, you know? That’s those snakes tangled all in her hair; it’s a little bit of a shout out I guess.

The hook came from simple overload of these times we’re in. “It’ll probably get worse, just give it time.” Obviously the world is crazy and being in this profession is crazy. This song is an emotional pull for what I want for my life and my career; it’s all in there. It can feel like a dark song sometimes, but it’s always surprising to me when that is the one that relates to people. We’ve only recently been playing that one out. It resonates, because I do think a lot of people feel pessimism hanging so close. Things are just getting worse. It’s real easy to get down. The line about, “Keep what you love by your heart.” But what if the only thing you love are your cigarettes? 

For the choruses, I wanted the story to grow, so each changes a bit. Adding something like “The soul shaking kind of buzz,” referencing the rampant drug use in Nashville among the music scene. And that helps spill you into this “Heartbreaking kind of love,” which references the couple that’s in the second verse, the man and a woman. And then the third one, it switches to, “That broken hearted kind of tough.” That is my favorite, might be my favorite phrase in the song, because it is very self-referential. I think when you’ve had your heart broken enough times by this fucking business it puts some calluses on you.

Acoustic guitar: Logan Ledger

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Electric guitar: Ethan Ballinger

Pedal Steel guitar: Eddy Dunlap

Keys: Ryan A. Keith

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums/Percussion: Dominic Billet

Robby Moore, Nashville, December 2024

AFTER MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

This was the first song we recorded in Nashville. I brought a handful of demos to Misa [Arriaga], who produced the Nashville sessions. This one was bluegrassy in its first iteration kind of by default, as the demo had Lillie Mae and Frank Rische on it, but I quickly knew I didn’t want it to be bluegrass. When Misa and I were doing pre-production work and listening to the demos, this was the first song that he said made him sit up and go, “Oh, this is something special.” So that felt good that he recognized that, because I do think it’s a standout track on the record.

I guess it would have been summer ’21 or ’22. I was going through a really heavy Gary Stewart phase, where it was just all consuming Gary Stewart. I had every album on CD and that was the only thing in my car for like two months. I wanted something that was similar to that kind of weepy 70’s country. A lot of twin guitars, or twin steel and guitar. So that’s where the inspiration came from. I very much wanted this to be the country-est song on the record, and Misa was like, “Hell yeah, let’s do it.” But once we got into it, the first few passes, it was not sounding like how I had heard it in my head, and I was getting really worked up. And I don’t normally get all that worked up in the studio, but you know, I was thinking, oh my god, it’s already going really bad. We have all these songs to do and we have two days, so that was the first hour for me. Misa was like, “We’re not doing this. You’re not going to be freaking out like this, that’s so unnecessary to the creative process. You need to enjoy this.” It’s funny because I think this is one of the best songs on the record, and I hope that it gets its due. 

When I first played it for my guitar player Jamie, he was like, “Man, it just puts me immediately in a [what was then Honky Tonk Tuesday] at Legion.” Spending so much time in honky tonks and bars, either playing or bartending, you see a lot of things. Playing live music, you’re out there pouring your heart out and people are standing right in front, talking. It’s crazy. I would say a lot of these songs are composite sketches of all these characters that I’ve seen over the years, but I love “The After Midnight Special.” 

Acoustic guitar: Logan Ledger

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Electric guitar: Ethan Ballinger

Electric guitar: Frank Rische

Pedal Steel guitar: Eddy Dunlap

Keys: Ryan A. Keith

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums/Percussion: Dominic Billet

BGV: Misa Arriaga, Laura Lamb

Schuyler Howie, Nashville, November 2023

FOOLS GOLD

I love this song. I love how it turned out. It is definitely a standout track to me, but I didn’t think it was a single. It’s funny that the songs that I thought were singles and the release order were very different from what New West thought. But hey, they’re in the business, so they would know better. But yeah, I had not thought of this one as a single, but ultimately glad it was released as the second single.

I wrote this song during the pandemic. We did a lot kayaking and camping in 2020, and you spend a lot of time prepping to go. You want to get out there early; you got to get your food and your beer and your snacks and you know, make a plan. So we had done all that the night before, and then it was a hundred percent chance of rain. Long story short: we ended up not going kayaking, so suddenly I had this huge long open day with nothing to do. I just sat down and I wrote down, “how does a woman stop it from raining all day?” And it really kind of just flowed from that first line. There’s the theme of rain and clouds and all that darkening in there. I just really dug deep on that one. It’s a very personal song. At the time I was thinking about how I could get out of this kind of high-functioning depression that I feel like I had been in denial about for probably the last four or five years. I feel like I’m finally out of it now, but it’s very personal in that regard. Like seriously, is there any sunshine coming? Is it literally just gray clouds from here on out?

There’s an instrumental bridge in it that I think really makes the song. We didn’t have that until we recorded it. This was in Nashville and another one Misa really loved right off the bat. We wanted to make it as dreamy as possible, I think because the words are so sad. Other than the line—“Walkin around in the dark can shine a little light,” which is just a poetic way of saying, how do I know my own mind, and how can I sit with these emotions instead of rejecting them. That’s how I have found that I can actually make it through hard times.

Vocally, this one is funny. This was the first vocal I cut for that group of songs. It was like a week or two after the initial recording session, and I was listening to all these vocal tracks of myself; I was so mad at them. I thought they were awful. It’s the worst thing I ever heard in my life. Like just fucking throw it away, delete it, I’ll come back in a month and and redo them or whatever. And Misa was like, “I’m going to save these, but we can re-record if you want.” And then I came back a few weeks later, and he put on the track for me to listen to. Turns out the vocals I thought were terrible, were actually really great. And Misa and I both thought, almost simultaneously, about bringing Erin Rae in on this one because she’s got such a beautiful voice that we knew would fit perfectly. I just love her singing and her writing so much. I was honored that she would want to do it; she sounds so beautiful on it. And I think she brings a little bit of levity to it; her harmony parts are not as sad-sounding as my lead part. Ryan Keith played keys, which I don’t always get to have in my live band. Ryan is just a really mystical and very musical person, very cosmic, and you can definitely feel him on this track. We just were like, yeah, let’s make a fucking magic carpet ride.

Acoustic guitar: Kristina Murray

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Electric guitar: Ethan Ballinger

Pedal Steel guitar: Eddy Dunlap

Keys: Ryan A. Keith

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Dominic Billet

BGV: Erin Rae

Schuyler Howie, Nashville, November 2023

WATCHIN’ THE WORLD PASS ME BY

The band and I had been playing this one out quite a bit already before we recorded it. Played live, it was a lot more of a straight ahead Waylon kind of sound, stiffer than it turned out on the album. It’s funny, when I wrote this song, I kind of wrote it tongue-in-cheek because I was noticing a lot of country artists– and when I say that, I mean like not Clear Channel country, but in the space I work in, Americana artists–some of them were starting to get popular doing this “outlaw” bit. I was like, what the hell is this, man? This is kind of boring writing, boring-ass baseline. I can tell where you ripped that off from. So anyway, I was just kind of annoyed by that and started writing the song with this straight ahead Waylon thing like, if this is what people want, then I’m gonna give them this. Turns out, it turned out to be a good song! In studio it evolved into what it is now, which is way more of a groovier, swampier, Jerry Jeff kind of vibe, which I love so much better than how we had been playing it.

I would say that’s probably the most autobiographical song on the record. I just got really tired of people going, oh, I’m a country musician now because I’ve put a cowboy hat on. It just all becomes so silly. And the song sort of came pretty much line by line. Real thoughts but contextualized within that silliness. And while I do get specific to myself in the lyrics, it’s also a general commentary on the general state of the music business. For example people selling their getting sober stories or people putting a cowboy hat on – “Now I’m country!” Or being really fucking good looking, or the nepotism. Wow nepotism—it’s so much more pervasive that anyone realizes. All those things tend to work really well in this business.

Genuinely, one of my absolute favorite things to do is see a really great country band or go to a bar with a great country jukebox. That’s what I’m saying —it’s not fake for me. But I am also a woman in this business and it’s hard. It’s hard to talk about. I’m always trying to tap into the well of experience. This is a real person that has lived this thing. I was talking to Misa the other day and complaining about my bartending jobs and he was like, “You don’t understand how much realness that gives to you. The fact that you are slinging drinks to people when other people are singing about doing that, and they’ve never fucking done it before.” And I’m like, I know, but my feet hurt, you know? And even with some success I feel like an outsider living and working within the scene. And yet we’re all in this together. This shit is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart, navigating this crazy business. But at the end of the day, I’m not going to stop doing it.

Acoustic guitars: Logan Ledger, Ryan A. Keith

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Baritone guitar: Ethan Ballinger

Pedal Steel guitar: Eddy Dunlap

Keys: Ryan A. Keith

Harmonicas: Ilya Portnov

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Dominic Billet

BGV: Misa Arriaga, Ryan A. Keith

A moment between Kristina and Sean Thompson, captured by James Paul Mitchell, East Avalon Recorders, Muscle Shoals, AL. Feb. 2023

GET DOWN TO IT

This is probably the oldest song on the album as far as when we wrote it. I think we wrote it in 2018 or 2019. Logan was one of the first people I met when I moved to Nashville. I was in awe of the way he sings. And like me, he also knew all the classic country stuff, so we could sing together really easily, very quickly. Several sets worth of songs. We played shows together in those first few years of being here quite a bit. So we started writing together a year or two into our friendship. There’s a song on my last record called, “Tell Me,” that we wrote together. It might be the best song on that record. We had a couple other ones that I liked, but I didn’t necessarily think were album worthy, or we had played them so much in a live situation that I was just kind of ready to move on from ‘em. But this one, I went over to his house to write, and we were just kind of hanging out, bit of a pity party, bitching about stuff. And I was like, well, do you even want to try to write today? And he was like, “Yeah, let’s just try and get something on paper.” So we wrote that song—it’s basically just stop feeling sorry for yourself or stop waiting for things to happen for you, and just do them yourself. When we wrote it, it was two verses and a chorus that repeats, no bridge; let’s just make it boogie-woogie. I really like writing with Logan because he does stuff vocally that I wouldn’t necessarily think to do just because that’s how his brain works and how his vocal instrument works. So I love that because then it’ll take me a while to vocally get in line with it, but it always ends up interesting. I think because we know each other and we know what each other likes to listen to. We aren’t trying to write a hit necessarily. I mean, that sounds awesome. I wish I had that mindset. I would love to write a hit. But I want my hit to be like Jim Lauderdale writing Patty Loveless songs.

Acoustic guitar: Kristina Murray

Electric guitar: Sean Thompson

Pedal Steel guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Keys: Hank Long

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Tim Kuras

BGV: Logan Ledger

Jon Walder, Music City Studio B, Nashville, April 2023.

JUST A LITTLE WHILE LONGER

This one’s a hard country song, you know, and as on my last two records, I’ve always had a very straight ahead song that showcases my love for that kind of music. On the last record, it would have been, “Tell Me.” I just love sad lonesome country songs. Give me a Merle Haggard slow one-verse, one-chorus song any day of the week. So I wanted to have one of those for this album. I had this idea about the way that the end of a beer looks at the bottom of the glass—it kind of looks like an ocean with a sun horizon. I was forming that idea and the rest of the song came from there. It’s one of those composites of tough times, previous lovers, rough spots in life. It’s a sketch of life. It’s desperate.

Frank Rische sings on that one, and I just love singing with him. We went through a couple of passes with that one. Frank kept being like, “Let me get one more.” And then of course it was always the very last one we liked the best. The second set of verses has some of the best singing on it across the whole record for both of us, but, yeah, just one of those sad, old, lonesome country songs, man. I think they’re just so much more universally felt than happy songs. Also, writing a good happy song is hard to do; usually they’re just so cheesy to me and I just can’t vibe with that. I think it was Waylon who said something like, “If I’m going to be singing these fucking songs for the rest of my life, they better be good,” or something to that effect. I just write what I know.

This is a weeper though. I wanted that pedal steel to sound as much like the voice as possible. I think that’s why I like the steel guitar so much, and the fiddle too in some respects. They sound like the voice instrument, that singing weepiness of it all. 

Acoustic guitar: Logan Ledger

Electric guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Electric guitar: Ethan Ballinger

Pedal Steel guitar: Mike Fried

Keys: Ryan A. Keith

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Dominic Billet

BGV: Frank Rische

Schuyler Howie, Nashville, November 2023

PHENIX CITY

This is an older song of the bunch. Phenix is a real place, across the Georgia border in Alabama. Tiny town. Not sure if it still is, but used to be a dry county—that opening line about needing a drive hints at that. This is a story song more than it is any kind of autobiography. I have a song on my last record called, “Slow Kill,” which is in a similar vein. That’s basically about the general state of this country and some of our “American” dreams. I am one of them. I never have enough money. Luckily, I don’t have children. It’s a little bit of a sister song to “Slow Kill,” about rural America and just what capitalism has done to this country and the people in these kind of small towns. I always like to say that Phenix City is a real place, but it could really just be any small town or even medium-size town in America where people are struggling with bills, with addiction, with existentialism about why they’re on the planet and, you know, all of that shit’s kind of all wrapped up together here. I was down in that part of Alabama/Georgia and it sort of just spilled out after landing those opening lines. There’s the pain, and that which you hope takes it away but ends up just giving you more. Oxy and Fentanyl now, all of that shit is so rampant. It’s like cancer, where if you yourself aren’t directly influenced or affected by it, you know someone that is. It’s very close to me. I put it in a male narrator, who knows somebody that knows somebody that’s dealing with it—that desperation and what we do to wake up the next day to keep chugging along.

Acoustic guitar: Kristina Murray

Electric guitar: Sean Thompson

Pedal Steel guitar, acoustic guitar: James Paul

Mitchell

Keys: Hank Long

Fiddle: John Mailander

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums/Percussion: Jamie Dick

BGV: Miss Tess

Kristina and Erin Rae captured by Misa Arriaga, Music City Studio B, Nashville, June 2023.

LITTLE BLUE

I originally thought this song would come out as a lullaby. I wrote it really fast, sometime early in the pandemic. I guess it would have been Winter 2021. It was cold. I was by myself. I read this quote by a marine biologist and explorer named Sylvia Earle about the uniqueness of our planet in the universes out there. That got me started with the story, which then has these three parts—my own personal depression, and then experiencing the Robin’s egg, and then take that out further to being our Earth, that’s just floating out there, in what looks like black nothingness; at the end, it releases into a big musical explosion, reflecting all that weight.

I have to say, there’s this Erin Rae song called, “June Bug,” that I just think is so amazing and has this ethereal feel to it. I remember referencing it to the band and telling them in the studio that I really want this spacey coda, because it’s got some kind of interesting progression. 

We’ve only ever played “Little Blue”  live a few times. A couple of years ago, I had a residency, and I had just written that song, and so I was really excited to try it out. And the first time I played it, it just went so bad. I got in my head after that and didn’t want to play it out. So we haven’t really played it much. We’re gonna see if it works though here coming up. I like that depending on the mood of a show, it can go at the top of a set or at the bottom or right in the middle of a set. It’s just a strange moody song. The guys freaking killed it on the end. To be honest, in the moment at the studio I wasn’t sure, but I just let them go, let them do what they wanna do. I just strummed along with my eyes closed, like, I don’t know when they’re gonna finish this up, but it sounds really good.

It’s funny when people listen to that song because generally the album is pretty country, save for some swampy kind of rock and roll elements here and there. But “Little Blue” is very rock and roll. It’s cool that if folks spend their time listening—spend their precious 30 minutes listening and they get to the end, it’s a little treat for anybody that’s there.

Acoustic guitar: Kristina Murray

Electric guitar: Sean Thompson

Pedal Steel guitar, resonator guitar: James Paul Mitchell

Keys: Hank Long

Bass: Jonathan Beam

Drums: Tim Kuras

Jon Walder, Music City Studio B, Nashville, April 2023.