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Maren Morris has made her peace with her relationship with country music. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she says she has no regrets about speaking out against the rise of conservatism in country music in 2022. “I never have a moment of, ‘Gosh, I would be in a much different place, a better place career-wise, if I had just played the game and kept my mouth shut and kissed the proverbial ring,’” she explained. “I feel a little bit more at peace and vindicated, because I’ve not changed my tune.” Maren has had a complicated relationship with country music over the past few years. While country music will always be part of her, she’s felt disappointed by her peers politically. But she is hopeful that there’s more in common than one might think. “I think we all agree on more than we think,” she said. “But so much is wedged through propaganda and culture wars. You focus on all these cultural differences instead of actual financial ones, like how they’re stealing our fucking money for a war that no one wanted or voted for.” She’s never lost her connection to country music and toured with her band all summer.
In 2023, she told the Los Angeles Times that she wasn’t leaving country music but distancing herself from the country music community. “I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship to country music. I still find myself weirdly wanting to protect it. But it’s not a family member. That’s the f—ed-up part, is that I’m talking about it as if it’s a person, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of deep deconstructing that I’m still unraveling.”