Photo: Todd Owyoung/NBC
Kacey Musgraves delivered her highly-anticipated fifth studio album, Deeper Well, on Friday (March 15), sharing that she’s “grateful to be alive and continuously inspired by life’s little mysteries and pleasures.” The record-breaking Grammy Award winner credited her team and collaborators with their role in bringing the project to life with her, and reflected on her venture to breathtaking cliffs in Iceland to film the music video for the title track.
That story involved “scary” strong winds, a quest to find a steam cave in the blue lagoon, and unexpectedly breaking the law in an effort to see the Northern lights.
Musgraves appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night (March 14). She spoke with host Jimmy Fallon about her new album and performed a then-unreleased track, “The Architect,” on the show. Musgraves explained that on her last night in Iceland, she and one of her managers, Bobby, was “such a champ. He went into ‘dad mode.’ He’s like, ‘I know you wanna see the Northern lights, kid.’ and we were all so, so tired from this rigorous shooting. But he’s like, ‘if you wanna go see the Northern lights, I’ll take you.’ …I was like, ‘I man, YOLO, Bobby.’ We only live once.”
The pair took off in a rental van in the middle of the night to see the Northern lights. When they turned around, “we’re speeding back to the hotel,” Musgraves recalled, noting the early call time she had the next morning. “About two weeks later, Bobby gets something in the mail, and apparently we broke the law in Iceland. We got a speeding ticket. …It was a printed-out piece of paper and it was only — it was $10, so it was worth it, obviously. I actually framed it for Bobby for Christmas,” she said as Fallon pulled up a copy of the photo that was mailed with the ticket.
Musgraves also performed on the TODAY Show to mark her album release day, including “Slow Burn” from 2018’s Golden Hour, and her cover of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” from the recently-premiered biopic. The Texas-born artist, 35, reflected in an interview with PEOPLE that she knows “myself better than in previous years, previous albums, and I just feel like I'm right where I need to be. ...Ultimately, (the title track) sums up where I'm at in my mid-30s and really evaluating what love means to me, what friendships mean to me, what are the things that I need, what is really serving me and not serving me. It's [about] taking stock and making room for the things that actually do really matter.”
- Cardinal
- Deeper Well
- Too Good to be True
- Moving Out
- Giver / Taker
- Sway
- Dinner with Friends
- Heart of the Woods
- Jade Green
- The Architect
- Lonely Millionaire
- Heaven Is
- Anime Eyes
- Nothing to be Scared Of
Musgraves teased her Deeper Well era with a commercial that premiered during the 2024 Grammy Awards last month (that’s where she won in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance category for “I Remember Everything” with Zach Bryan, making Musgraves the first artist to win in all four country categories). That evening, her website listed items available for pre-order labeled “KM5,” and shortly after that, Musgraves announced Deeper Well’s release date. She posted photos taken by her younger sister, photographer Kelly Christine Sutton, and described the album, produced with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, as “a collection of songs I hold very dear to my heart. I hope it makes a home in all of your hearts, too.” Musgraves released two tracks ahead of Deeper Well's debut, the title track and “Too Good to be True,” which got an official, Scott Cudmore-directed music video on Friday morning with the album release.
Musgraves announced on Wednesday morning (March 13) that she’ll play Deeper Well in its entirety for the first time during a one-night-only show on Friday night, at the historic Ryman Auditorium, located in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee. She'll kick off her headlining world tour next month.