Maren Morris is ready to roll out her third LP. We don’t have a title or release date yet, but the Nashville pop-country star has unveiled the lead single from her follow-up to 2019’s excellent GIRL. It’s called “Circles Around This Town,” and it returns her to the car fixation that yielded bangers like “My Church” and “80s Mercedes.” Morris calls it her most autobiographical song to date, centering on her move from Texas to Nashville nine years ago. She wrote it with her husband and frequent duet partner Ryan Hurd plus “The Bones” co-writer Jimmy Robbins and pop songwriter extraordinaire Julia Michaels.
Speaking to New Music Daily on Apple Music 1, Morris said “Circles Around This Town” came together in 2020:
I was very stuck in this time loop, like the rest of the world, and trying to write, but it was hard because everything was shut down, we couldn’t tour. I was not good at Zoom co-writing, I sucked at it. I really need to just be in the room with people. So, when we wrote “Circles Around This Town,” I was writing in-person, safely with my husband, Ryan, and Julia Michaels and our friend Jimmy Robbins, who I wrote “The Bones” with. And I don’t know, I brought that title in and Julia was the one, I think, to sort of prompt me to get really specific with the narrative of that first verse ,and it was our first time and only time writing. I would love to keep continue writing with her because she’s amazing, but this was the only time that we had written and she just knocked it out of the park with getting really, really specific to me and getting to know me, but also putting it in the song.
Watch the “Circles Around This Town” video below.
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