star-crossed: Examining Heartbreak, Heartache, and Healing -

By Angela Hickey

Billed as a “tragedy in three parts—” inspired by Shakespeare and a pivotal experience on psychedelic mushrooms, paired with an expensive-looking film and the most elaborate production of her career—Kacey Musgraves’ star-crossed is a beautiful chronicle of heartbreak and healing.

Musgraves’ fifth studio album, star-crossed, which was released on September 10th, reveals the singer-songwriters’ lingering emotions in the wake of her recent divorce. Despite the Texas-born singers’ rather eccentric inspiration, Musgraves takes great pains to make sure her songs are grounded in reality, where things are not necessarily beautiful and poetic. Sometimes they are just heartbreaking.

Typically, when country artists discuss the deep grief of heartbreak, their lyrics depict how life will not be able to go on without the lover and, in less than amicable splits, the airing of dirty laundry and the slashing of tires. But Musgraves, who originally filed for divorce in the summer of 2020, handles the subject with care and, in some cases, great respect and reverence.

“I wasn’t going to be a real country artist without at least one divorce under my belt,” she joked in a recent interview with The New York Times.

Compared to her previous studio album, the Grammy award-winning Golden Hour (2018)—which was considered a pop breakthrough inspired by the glow of a happy relationship—fans cannot help but consider the irony between then and now.

star-crossed reads like a heartbroken woman searching for answers; the album is depicting and analyzing the entirety of her marriage, trying to piece together exactly where it went wrong. Musgraves begins with her early happiness, going on to express her anger, grief, and, finally, her acceptance.

“Yeah, this record is inspired largely by some major life changes,” said Musgraves in a recent interview with KAWC, “but also it’s following me chronologically over the last probably two-and-a-half, three years since Golden Hour came out. It’s kind of picking up where I left off there.”

While Musgraves originally debuted with more country influences, this most recent project is more of a pop record, incorporating folk, dance, rock, and psychedelic elements while attempting to retain the country sensibility of its predecessors.

Overall, Musgraves does not take this misfortune lightly. She takes the time to consider her life thus far and how she ended up in this moment, and the audience can tell how carefully she handles the expression of her feelings throughout this album. This is not a damning exposé about the love that ruined her; it is a careful and reverent goodbye filled with love and gratitude. It is a thank you for the precious memories and experiences she has made these past three years.
“I think that this record is also a kind of a reminder that the people that you might see on Instagram—be them celebrities or even people in your daily life—we’re all putting our highlight reel on, putting our best face forward. And I think as much as you can be ’the Golden Hour girl,’ the girl in love and the girl experiencing this really beautiful facet of life, you can experience the complete antithesis of that, you know? And it’s real. It’s real life and I just think that embracing the good and the bad and knowing that we’re all experiencing it, whether you’re famous or not, is a really beautiful reminder that we’re all in this together,” Musgraves said.