Well Played: A Review of Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well

When you dive into Kacey Musgraves’ lovely folk-country album, Deeper Well, you’ll likely discover the singer/songwriter secure, but searching. After love (captured on the masterpiece that is 2018’s Golden Hour) and loss (poured out on 2021’s star-crossed) come self-healing, (personal and professional) lessons learned, even a few unanswered questions, all reflected on 14 sonically soothing, acoustic-centered tracks, with Musgraves’ angelic voice at the heart (of the woods).

Here, Musgraves is at her earthiest. Throughout the album, she and her writing team have incorporated references to the natural world and its inhabitants, the seasons and the afterlife: With the opener, “Cardinal,” the scarlet-red bird is seen as a messenger “from the other side” (an expression Musgraves also adds to “Dinner with Friends”). She also asks: “Are you just watching and waiting for spring?” With “Too Good to be True,” Musgraves musters the courage to open herself up to that foreshadowed new beginning (“Summer’s gone, but you’re still here/For both of us, it’s been a year”), yet subsequently on “Moving Out,” cohabitation comes with challenges. She sings metaphorically, “That big tree in the front yard lost a limb,” and uses the season of autumn to signify the decay of that relationship, evidenced by the following track, “Giver/Taker” and its opening line: “Sundown and I’m lonely in this house.”

But it’s the title track, as well as “Sway” that document her quest for centeredness amid all the changes that life can bring “without a warning,” words expressed on “Too Good to be True” and similarly on “Cardinal.” Musgraves never pretends to have it all figured out; in fact, on “The Architect,” she paints a series of scenarios to convey a balance of curiosity and confusion about creation, and life on the planet, leading, once again, to confirm Musgraves’ knack for relatability through lyrical construction. By album’s end, “Nothing to be Scared of” finds her dipping her toes in the relationship waters once again. And if life and love ever get murky again, Musgraves now knows she can always go back to the well.

Photo 1: “Cardinal” music video, directed by Scott Cudmore; Photo 2 and 3: “My Saturn Has Returned” promo for Deeper Well (cinematographer: Mika Matinazad).

A Big Fan of Fran

Direct and decisive, Fran Lebowitz (author of Metropolitan Life; Social Studies; writer for Interview and Mademoiselle magazines) has offered up her observations and opinions about life, and life in New York, since the 1970s. In Martin Scorsese’s 2021 seven-part Netflix docs-series, “Pretend It’s a City,” Lebowitz goes from putting her perspective down on pen and paper (literally, as she doesn’t own a computer, a cell phone, or an electronic tablet) to conversing across a table with Scorsese about Times Square, public transportation, her lifelong passion, and strict reverence, for books, and much more. And in doing so, Lebowitz delivers something epiphanic in nearly every 30-minute episode (her thoughts on the basketball legend, Michael Jordan springs to mind, for starters).

When the end credits appear, there’s a desire for more Fran; likely Scorsese felt the same way, squeezing in one more sharp sentiment from the woman of the half-hour during the credits. Wishing for a sequel, Mr. Scorsese, “Pretend It’s Still a City.”