There is a mild buzz outside the open door of Amanda Shires’ dressing room backstage at the Grand Ole Opry House. “Sorry, there’s a tour going on out there,” she says, looking over a visitor’s shoulder at the gaggle, “and they’re gonna probably ask to peek in.” She’s leaving her door open for producers to come find her as she prepares to rehearse for what will be the public premiere of her new single, “A Way It Goes,” on this Saturday evening. It’s not necessarily what you’d immediately identify as a country song, per se, but the Opry does love a woman who can play a mean fiddle, as Shires does, when she is not strictly focused on belting out some of the most bracingly confessional songs being written in any American genre.
Speaking of asking to peek in: that’s why we’re here, too. Not to get a gander at the portraits of all the bygone country legends on the dressing room walls, but to get a better picture of the feelings that drove Shires to make a transfixing new album, “Nobody’s Girl,” that has been a subject of great curiosity ever since she announced it, or even before. The Texas-bred, Nashville-based singer-songwriter has always written from the heart, without stinting on the rough stuff, as was evident from her previous record, 2022’s critically acclaimed “Take It Like a Man.” That previous record was produced by Lawrence Rothman and featured guest appearances from Jason Isbell, but only Rothman is returning for “Nobody’s Girl,” since Isbell filed for divorce proceedings at the end of 2023. For the almost two years since, fans have been on pins and needles to hear how Shires would use her next album to express what her life has been like.
It’s definitely not a cover-up. (Yes, there’s an allusion there that’s intentional.) But neither is it a tell-all. A few of the tracks get into the nitty-gritty of what went wrong in that very public union, where Shires was half of one of America’s most celebrated musical couples. In “A Way It Goes,” she expresses her ambivalence about dwelling on the pain of that split in her music — but she does also have a song on the album called “The Details,” which does spill some. In all, anyway, “Nobody’s Girl” is mostly about the ruggedness and tenderness of a path back to independence, for someone who feels she surrendered some of that along the way. She won’t balk if you call it a divorce album (or at least won’t if her pal Shooter Jennings candidly calls it that). But a reclamation album is better, whether or not the critics really keep a category title handy for that.
It was important to Shires to air out the mess while also exercising some restraint, on the record. As she must now in life, as she deals with a habit she’s needed to kick. “Would you believe I haven’t vaped in nine days?” she asks. “I was all-out vaping. I was in front of everybody vaping. I’d vape on stage; I didn’t care. But now I’m a nine-day not-vapor.” How is that going? “It’s all right. I’m doing chewing gum, but I’d rather be vaping. Sometimes I just go outside and look at big clouds, for inspiration, or to feel like I’m chuffing.”
Did we mention that Shires is one of the more naturally funny interviewees you’ll run into? Thankfully, she’s good with gallows humor, too, which might be part of what got her through the trauma of the last two years, though you won’t hear a lot of dark yuks on “Nobody’s Girl” itself. It doesn’t stint on the gravity of a journey that, to her, has felt “longer than the Holland Tunnel” in a bad rush hour.
Given that most of the audience out there at the Opry House is not hers, will they have the slightest idea that they are hearing a woman spill her guts on a crucial personal subject for the first time? Not likely. Nonetheless, if nothing else, she is going to dazzle them with the “big-ass dress” she’s about to put on, figuring that the Opry, in its 100th anniversary year, deserves no less of a sartorial effort from her. Meanwhile, “Nobody’s Girl” — which just came out this weekend — is beautiful and jolting enough to deserve nothing less than our full attention. (The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)
It’s a very forthright album. People who know your work wouldn’t expect anything less from you. But when you were writing for it, did you have to kind of measure along the way, “How much do I want reveal to people?”
I used music more to get me through this hard time than I’ve ever used it in my life, to work myself and walk myself through the emotional turmoil and “what is my life?” and the transitions that have been befalling me. I don’t think that those things need to be decided before you are doing music, if you’re doing it for self-care and for your mental health. The decisions come later when you decide if you’re gonna record it or if you’re gonna keep the song in the end. I think I wrote 30-something songs for this, and some of them Lawrence didn’t even hear, just to work through it on my own. Because that’s how I taught myself to work through the big feelings and the sadness and the bitterness and the anger. But you don’t want to put bitter and angry songs on records, because that’s not helping anybody. And then in the end you decide, what is the story that you feel comfortable telling? Or that you feel comfortable with your child reading later? You know, I never want to cause harm at all. But I also don’t want to not have my opportunity to be true to myself. And that’s how I decided which songs made the collection in the end.
You started recording a followup to “Take It Like a Man” in Nashville before the divorce happened, and then you and your producer reconvened in L.A. to start again. Because of the tumult in your life, were there, like, two different versions of the album you were making?
What I was working on a couple years ago, most of that’s on a different hard drive. There’s not a lot left from that Nashville session. “The Details,” which is on this album, started out as a different song, and I kept some of that track from the Nashville session, but I rewrote all the words. “Can’t Hold Your Breath,” the climate change song, is from the Nashville sessions, at least the vocal take. But everything else — yeah, I had a different record, and then my life got turned upside down, so I started from there.
I’ll be honest with you, I tried to skip all of that [making a record with songs about the split], because I wanted to just go to the part where I get to feeling better about life. And then Shooter (Jennings) said, “You can’t just skip all this! — as your divorce record consultant.” I was like, “It’s not really a divorce record.” Or maybe it is. But he said, “You can’t just skip all that, because then it’s not acknowledging all the (hard parts).” Which is true. I was gonna go one way, and Lawrence wanted me to go this way, and I was being stubborn. And then Shooter was the tiebreaker — not the tie-breaker, maybe, but the voice of reason that somehow got in there. And I listened.
I was thinking: “I don’t know if I want to sing that every day.” And then I decided: yes, I wouldn’t mind singing this group of songs every day. I had gotten to a place where I felt comfortable with my new life and wanted to talk about that, but the truth is, is in the middle of it all, I truly wasn’t over it yet, and I was trying to force myself into a head space before I was ready. I kept telling myself everything was fine … as one does. I was telling myself that I was healed, when I wasn’t.
The irony is that you need other voices to sound off of when you’re writing about being alone, isn’t it?
These came after me kicking and bucking about how I’d thought I’d written enough songs. Lawrence saying, “It’s not about that. It’s about writing your way through it, like you always do.” In the ways we know each other as friends, Lawrence could tell that there was still stuff to get off the old chest, whether it got recorded or not. So we sat down and started experimenting with sound to see what would happen, and “A Way It Goes” came out of that, and then that one turned out to be one that I felt was important and necessary to the collection. Luckily, we all ended up feeling the same way. Otherwise, we would’ve had to get to wrestling, and I would’ve won, because I have more muscles than Lawrence. I could break Lawrence in half.
It’s part of the nature of getting through something difficult is that you have to just say it over and over, and then as you work on it daily and start taking out your feelings at the gym. and with your pastor, then you start feeling better. And, you know, making new friends, joining backgammon leagues, all these things are helpful.
Backgammon was a part of your healing process?
Do you play?
No.
Dammit. I’ve been playing for over a year now. I recommend it. I’ve discovered that more people play backgammon that I know than I realize. My piano player of 10 years, Peter; Dominic, who played bass on this record, from Jack White’s band; Jimbo Hart [the former bassist for the 400 Unit, now in Shires’ band], this whole time I’ve known this man, he plays backgammon. It’s more fun to me than chess, because you kind of memorize things in chess, and in this one, there’s too many variables that could happen in the way the dice just fall for you that day. It teaches you a lot about yourself. I like doing Texas Hold ‘Em and playing card games for money, too. But in this game, you have to learn how to go to war and hit people that you’re friends with. And I was very uncomfortable with that at first. You know, it’s not just a game to me.
Here’s hoping for a backgammon song on the next record. Going back to “A Way It Goes,” you start the record right off talking about what you’ve been through recently and what people want to know from you.
Yeah, why not address the elephant in the room? That song is one of the last ones I wrote for the record, because that is the contention I was having, and I was thinking I would rather people see me as I normally am, or healthy. But the truth is that life is hard, and I’ve never shied away from showing the hard bits. And I think a lot of people are going through it right now, anyway, so I addressed that in the first song. And by the time we get to the third verse… going further on into the journey of it, you realize that it’s a death of a time, but it’s not the death of you. And you do heal, and you do grow, so I even surprised myself.
I wrote the song because I really couldn’t believe it when I felt my heart feeling hope or joy. And it’s not like I can’t always find joy in little things. But it does surprise you when you’re going through something where you feel clouds and darkness to, suddenly, you might have a shred of hope and possibility again, or a rumor or whisper of it. But when you’re in that tunnel, it’s a long one. Longer than the Holland Tunnel on peak traffic day.
You’ve mentioned that heartbreak takes on a lot of different moods and forms on this album. You can address a painful situation head on and still have a lot of variation on what that feels like on a given day. And anybody who’s gone through a divorce has probably felt about 50 different things.
Oh, 500 million of ‘em. And then you find yourself again and your identity again, not the same as you were before, but a different version. And you find yourself reclaiming lots of things along the way. …. But I’ve found reclamation in a lot of spots where I didn’t know that I had compromised little things along the way. And that’s pretty nice… and scary at the same time. Well, it was scary at first. That Taylor Swift song, “crying at the gym” [“Down Bad”], is real. That really happens. [Laughs.]
No one who sees your arms when you play the violin on stage will probably be surprised that you work out.
Well, you’ve gotta have a place to exert some physical energy. Not only is it good for your endorphins and your serotonin levels, but staying active keeps you from just doing what I did for weeks, which was cover up all the mirrors, lay on the damn bed and eat golden double-stuffed Oreos. Like, sleeves of them — I mean, that was my sustenance for a long time. I was just trying to douse myself in that golden goodness, and I wound up putting on 20 pounds. And that was fine. I didn’t care. I had leggings, it was winter. [Laughs.]
To be physically strong and mentally strong, they kinda work together. And if I can get through that, then I can also quit vaping. Can’t do it all at once, though. You’re just asking for it: What’s left?
It seemed like you were backing off social media during and after that rough time.
I didn’t really have room for thinking about it. I would sometimes get on it and see if I could find some kind of levity. But I mostly just painted and worked with my backgammon coach, worked out, did everything you do. Do laundry and make sure the homework got done and school lunches, and be strong for my daughter. Sometimes cry in the pantry when nobody was looking. But I made some new friends, and that always helps, because it’s part of it too — in this business, people kind of choose sides.
And during that time, I thought, “What am I gonna say that’s gonna spread any kind of joy in the world, at the moment?” Whining’s not becoming, either. Also, being the default parent is a whole other ball on its own of things to accomplish and priorities.
The last we saw you before any of this in L.A. was at a premiere at the Grammy Museum for the HBO documentary you co-starred in with Jason [“Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed”].
And I went along with that. That’s fine. Oh well!
If you had it all to do over again, would you not film that documentary?
No, because we all make choices and decide things and we’re doing it for our family and all this kind of stuff. That’s where I was then. To do it all over again, I would ask (director) Sam Jones to recut that wine shot, where we were celebrating Dave Cobb’s anniversary or something. Everybody says I showed up drinking wine. They paint me to be some kind of lush, when really I’m just celebrating like the rest of them. We’re celebrating Jesus’ first miracle, too! That’s all I would do, have him recut that part, because things get taken out of context, I guess as they have to be, to make better documentaries. But it’s all water up under the bridge.
Your fans relate to you personally so much, and feel they have a stake in your life… and not just you as an individual but the solidity of the relationship they think they’re seeing. And so when all this stuff happens, fans of one or both of you are thinking, “Where do I place those feelings, where I thought everything was this one way?”
And I thought it was too, guys, I’ll tell you. But life is a funny thing. The best way to be, I guess, is flexible. Yeah, I thought it was that way, too. But it’s a mystery.
So, we just have to ask: Did you listen to Jason’s new record (“Foxes in the Snow,” released earlier this year, which also includes songs about the divorce)?
Um, I thought that… I did. I listened to it. I think I listened to all of it. I did.
It was during that time, though, that I was listening to Jack White’s record, “No Name,” which I was playing mostly on repeat the whole time. That Jack White record got me through this. Because it had my feelings of angst and drive and everything that I needed to cope. He has that song “That’s How I’m Feeling Right Now.” It’s like my anthem, and then I’m bombing out. [She sings Jack White’s guitar lick out loud.] So good! If I was gonna make a divorce recommendation playlist, that whole record would definitely be a part of it. Or any hardship, you know, any kind of grief — a death of whatever.
Just one last question about a specific lyric…
You can ask me whatever you want. I’ll tell you. I always do, for better or worse.
“The Details” is probably the most pointed song on the album. [Sample lyrics: “I got him help, and then he bailed / What were all those promises for? / Cover me up, nothing’s ever enough / Gonna have to put the house up for sale / He scared me then, he still scares me now / Never will hear me out / The thing is he justifies it, using me / And cashing in on our marriage.”] You’re saying there that the marriage was commoditized.
Well, do you think it was?
Well, that wouldn’t be for me to judge. As an outsider, some of us like confessional-seeming songs, and it’s not always easy to make a distinction between somebody just revealing their life versus creating an image.
As a person who helped build all that, it’s an odd thing… I mean, we always had this thing where you write the song about whatever, when we both are songwriters. But there was a leaning on that. You know, I didn’t feel it as pressure. But we were building that and building a future and building for our family, and then now there’s not that. So, yeah, I do think there’s that (element) mixed with the songwriting. Because, you know, sometimes you just write a song, but yeah, definitely, I think there was an image filter on that.
You do actually quote the title “Cover Me Up” in there.
I do, don’t I? I did put that in there… What can you do?
You do have a couple of songs on the album that are outliers, in that they are about other situations, and not necessarily as heavy — like “Friend Zone,” which is about at least considering dating, but being thwarted in that by a one-sided attraction.
Like, I haven’t dated since anybody in a hundred thousand years… But you think you might have a crush on somebody and then they put you in the friend zone, but then in hindsight you’re glad that you’re just friends with people. But also, yeah, it felt like it needed just a little bit of lightness in there.
Your friend and Highwomen cohort Maren Morris had an album out earlier this year that seemed like a mixture of divorce songs and then songs about getting back on the dating circuit.
I haven’t really done that. I’ve been on, like, two dates, but I wasn’t ready. I want to be a whole person before I venture into those territories. I don’t want to take any of my dirty laundry and unsorted baggage with me; I want to have it sorted.
Regardless of whether you’re on social media much or not, you must be aware that you have a lot of guy fans out there who are saying, hopefully jokingly, “OK, now I’ve got a shot.”
You do not want this shot with this person that likes to spend a lot of time alone, and with inanimate objects, and watch Westerns over and over. Or maybe you do. If you like gardening, if you like Westerns, if you like helping with home repair, by all means, step up. I need help! I do not know how to fix the dishwasher.
You mentioned earlier that you were thinking about your daughter hearing the record, now or later, in deciding how candid to be with the songs you were putting on it.
It doesn’t mean I’m censoring my art for that, though, I just want to to be mindful and aware best I can. I know I can’t do it perfectly, but I don’t wanna run into anything that I wouldn’t be able to talk to her about, or that would make her life harder than it needs to be. But also, at the same time, I’ve got about 50 listeners, so she won’t have to be asked too much about what I said on my record, you know? But it’s not like we’re writing about murder or something crazy. It’s like I told her: It’s our feelings and they rhyme, and if she has questions, she can ask me.
But I’m not gonna get on there and say, “You old son of a bitch!” That would be rude. I might say that at the gym, when I’m trying to deadlift. But I could be talking to my trainer.
You walk some fine lines really nicely with this record, and maybe it’s the way the song selection turned out, but it’s not a super angry record, per se. But you do have your moments where you have your back up.
I appreciate you for noticing that. Yeah, I think tact is a good thing. But I’ve never been good at just holding my tongue completely. I can sort of put it half in, like some kind of stoned cat.
In the very last lines of the last song on the album (“Not Feeling Anything”), you have a beautiful image of natural beauty you are taking in as you reestablish your independence: “Come in when I want / Take long, long walks / A moon-sized moonflower reminds me where I stopped.” Is than just a random observation or an important symbol to you?
It’s an important symbol. They bloom at night and they open at night for various pollinators that do night work. They smell really, really good, and then they close in the morning, kind of like the opposite of a morning glory. It gets really hot in Tennessee. Nobody has any business being out there gardening in the daytime. I like to garden in the evening times, like dusk and onward, because I’m not an idiot. And I also have high blood pressure, and when you mix that and sunshine, it’s a bad combination. So I garden at night, which is also nice because it’s quiet and you don’t have to send emails and bedtime has happened and you have the time to yourself. And the way those big old things are bursting open, it’s really beautiful, because you can see ‘em in the dark.
That resonates with your spirit somehow.
Yeah, it does. I always feel like plants and gardening keeps me close to my dad and my grandparents. [Shires’ father passed away shortly after this interview was conducted.] It keeps me centered. I think you learn your center early on as a kid, and so much of what we’re doing on this planet is exactly what the plants are doing: growing through the weather and all the stages, and then making it through things like early frosts and winds and rains. To me, it’s mimetic of what we’re doing here. Except for the part where our country’s a shambles, because… well, let’s not go on that tangent.
The title of that final song, “Not Feeling Anything,” has you ending on neither a note of devastation nor joy, but acceptance.
Yeah, I think that you get to a place where it feels OK to not feel so up and down, and where you can think and talk about it more easily. It’s still kind of hard to talk about because unless you’ve had a marriage and a divorce, it’s hard to find common language with folks. But for myself, I also think about it in the way that a record ends: I listen to records on loop, and I like to make sure it would sound right going into the loop again. And I don’t know if that’s a musical preference or my own neuroses. But it can be a good thing when you’re not feeling anything. Your feeling numb is a way better feeling than feeling all the other things, like self-loathing or confusion or lost, or “who am I?”
I think, for me, when I quit feeling those huge, enormous feelings, I was able to get back to “what am I doing?” You can do more when you’re not feeling anything extreme; you can feel closer to your own center, again, after the big feelings had seemed to take over. It’s then that you can feel like you’re on the road to something. When I got to that point, I started identifying the things that I still had and the things that I had more of now. In my reclamation of things, I pulled them all in and started counting them. Much like a dragon does with treasure.
Some people would hear a description that sounds like numbness and, because of how people with artistic temperaments are trained to value emotions, could be thinking “Not Feeling Anything” sounds like you’re describing a bad thing. But it’s a place of being more objective, isn’t it?
Exactly. Think a little clearer. Make better decisions. Control your limbs. [Laughs.]
It sounds like you’re in a good place.
Yeah. I made a list. I keep this list going of things that I reclaimed. It’s not a bad list. I like to look at it every once in a while (and think), “Good job, Shires.” Because it’s so many parts of your identity that may not seem big, but they make up big pieces of you. And you don’t know that until you’re back to only yourself in the room. It’s hard to explain how you become a different identity when you’re a married person, an identity of two. orhowever many.
[She pulls out her phone to read off the list she’s been compiling.] “Ireclaim my time and how I choose to spend it. My name no longer an extension of someone else’s. My space, my voice, my body, every room I enter, every word I speak, every way I move and rest and live.” That’s true. “Reclaim my choices, every small decision, every leap without apology. Reclaim my quiet, the right to be still, to be unseen, to belong to myself, in my little chaos. My order, my future, my joy and my loyalty. Keeping it for those who deserve it, starting with myself. Reclaim the silence they mistook for surrender, the tenderness they mistook for weakness and the fire they thought they could extinguish.”
I’m gonna keep adding to that. It has a lot of “I’s” in it. [Laughs.] I’m already self-editing… Too many “I” statements.