Kacey Musgraves’ family members haven’t shied away from weighing in on her career — especially her grandma.
“I was showing my parents and my grandparents the photos that my sister had taken. And then the naked one came up, and Nana [gasped]. Like she just saw a car wreck, basically,” Musgraves, 35, recalled during her Wednesday, March 20, appearance on Today’s Country Radio.
Musgraves said her granny Barbara couldn’t believe her eyes the first time she saw the nude alternative cover of her new album, Deeper Well, which was released earlier this month.
“She was like, ‘No!’ She was like, ‘That’s not … that’s a cover?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s one of the covers,'” added Musgraves.
Upon realizing that Musgraves was being completely serious, Barbara had some choice words for her granddaughter.
“She was like, ‘Kacey, you’re a singer, not a stripper,’” Musgraves recalled, adding, “And I was like, ‘Well, you know what? You can be both.'”
The artwork Musgraves was referencing shows her curled up naked on the ground in a field of grass and tiny yellow wildflowers with trees in the distance. In the image, her back is facing the camera and her long brown hair is the only thing covering her body.
Musgraves noted that the picture wasn’t really planned. Instated, it came about organically while she was on location with her sister.
“I just randomly had this idea … Because it was a big, wide open green space. And I was like, ‘What if I was just really small?’ Like, in the fetal position, sort of, into the earth,” she explained on the radio program. “And it’s just sort of vulnerable and almost like rebirth, I guess.”
The other cover option, also shot by Musgraves’ sister, is completely different. It features the Grammy winner wearing what appears to be an off-the-shoulder sweater, gazing at the camera and holding a crimson clover as the wind blows through her hair.
This isn’t the first time Musgraves’ grandma has chimed in on her artistic choices. In 2018, she shared in an interview with Stereogum that her grandma also used to scold her for cursing.
“[My grandma] still has such a giant issue that I cuss a lot,” Musgraves said. “And I’m like, ‘This is not a new fact, like, you’ve known this for many years now,’ and she just shudders every time I say anything, she’s just like, ‘Kacey.'”
Musgraves has even referenced her grandma’s reactions in her lyrics. In her 2018 song “Slow Burn,” the opening track on her album Golden Hour, she sings, “Texas is hot / I can be cold / Grandma cried when I pierced my nose.”
