Maren Morris might be singing a few more county notes after all.
Two months after saying she was taking a “step back” from country music because “it’s burning itself down,” the singer changed her tune during her Tuesday night appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“I don’t think [country music is] something you can really leave because it’s a music that’s in me and that’s what I grew up doing,” she told host Jimmy Fallon after he asked her to clarify headlines saying she was completely done with the genre.
“It’s the music I write, even if I’ve been sort of genre-fluid my whole career,” the “My Church” hitmaker continued.
“You can’t, like, scrub the country music out.”
“So, it was very, like, hyperbolic.”
“But, you know, headlines are different from the things you actually say,” she quipped.
“So you’re not leaving country music?” an intrigued Fallon replied.
“No, no. I’m taking, like, the good parts with me and all are welcome,” Morris re/confirm/ied.
“But, yeah, there were just some facets of it that I didn’t really, like, jibe with anymore. So, I’m a lot happier now.”
In September, the 33-year-old Grammy winner told the Los Angeles Times she became disillusioned with the country genre after beginning to realize people were “proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.”
“If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized,” she noted.
“Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress.”
“But I’ve kind of said everything I can say.”
Morris further explained her stance regarding what she sees as the downfall of country music during an interview on The New York Times’ “Popcast” podcast in October.
“I couldn’t do this circus anymore — feeling like l have to absorb and explain people’s bad behaviors and laugh it off,” she said.
“I just couldn’t do that after 2020 particularly. I’ve changed. A lot of things changed about me that year.”
Before she led people to believe she was dropping out of the country genre entirely, Morris publicly called out country superstar Morgan Wallen in 2021 after a video of him using the N-word leaked.
Last year, she publicly feuded with Jason Aldean and his wife, Brittany Aldean, for their transphobic social media comments.
In addition to her comments on the country genre, Morris also made headlines this year for splitting from her husband of five years, Ryan Hurd.
On Oct. 2, she filed for divorce from Hurd due to “irreconcilable differences.”
Hurd previously said he was “proud” of Morris for sticking up for transgender children when she called out the Aldeans.
The pair share one child, a 3-year-old son named Hayes.
