Kacey Musgraves on Psychedelics

about it all that. Singer songwriter Kasey Musgraves, she says she's always had a strong sense of herself and her sound, even when it's cut against country music norms. In recent years, casies try to further unlock her full self through psychedelic trips. Research and neuroscience shows that people can leave their trips with profound shifts in perspective and in certain personality traits

that otherwise rarely change after age thirty. A trait like openness, for example, which is highly associated with creativity, tends to decrease as we age, but scientific research coming out of Johns Hopkins University has shown that psychedelic experiences can actually increase people's openness, which includes everything from esthetic appreciation to empathy to imagination. Literally, the day after my experience I mean it was like the neurons were just firing off

like insane imagery perspective. I mean, there was a massive explosion of creativity ideas the whole concept for my new album that I've been writing. One of my inspirations for creating this podcast has been to see how people change their perspectives of who they are and how they relate to the world in the face of a big change.

Research shows that psychedelics can offer up a turbocharge version of this kind of change, and as a cognitive scientist, I've long been fascinated by the powerful impact psychedelics can have on the human mind, but my interest lies exclusively in the scientific realm. It's worth noting that experimenting with these drugs without close medical guidance and a full evaluation

of one's mental health history can carry considerable risk. For this episode of A Slight Change of Plans, I wanted to talk to Casey Musgraves about the role psychedelics has played in her creative process, both for her Grammy Award winning album Golden Hour and for her upcoming album, which

she says was inspired by a guided psychedelic trip. I'm Maya Shanker and this is a slight change of plants, a show that dives deep into the world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently at that change in our own lives. What's astonishing to me is that when researchers run studies, right controlled studies where they're looking at the impact of psychedelics on people, so many will say, Wow, that was one of the most profound experiences of my

entire life. Yes, and yet they really really have a hard time putting into words why that was or even describing the experience. It's like the vocabulary that we have in our language is insufficient trying to describe. Yeah, do you feel like having music as another vehicle for communication allows you to share what it felt like in a different way or more effectively? I feel like music is

totally another catalyst to feeling. And what's cool is if you really just break it down, I mean, it's sound waves where like these bags of water basically, and like when sound vibrates out and sound waves hit you. I mean it's cool that it can actually change your mood, change your mind. When you've tried psychedelics for the first time, had you hope that it might inspire music or were

you just on a sort of personal journey. Well, I've done it recreationally, you know, I think it's different when you do it with intention. I mean what I was looking for most recently when I did a guided trip in January. You know, this past year I went through a divorce and it was not an easy time everything

that came along with that. And so this experience, which was led by not only two of my friends, but one of them is a doctor practicing doctor and her husband, it was about transforming my trauma, my tragedy into something else, you know, and everyone has their own form of trauma. This was mine. But experiences like this they bring people to a place where they meet like or inner self healer, they're inner child. And I mean, you know more about

this than I do. But I just think it's interesting that you know, as you live your life, you wear down these pathways in your brain, almost like little trails you know, in the woods or something. Whatever is in these psychedelics, this medicine, these plants, they can change these pathways and allow you to think differently, access different emotions,

different memories, and change your life, change your habits. It literally the day after my experience I mean it was like the neurons were just firing off like insane imagery perspective. I mean, there was a massive explosion of creativity ideas the whole concept for my new album that I've been writing. Do you feel like these trips inspire lyrics or do they inspire melodies or do they inspire both? It's different every time, I think, And you can't really go in

with like a preconceived selfish want. You know, you're going to get what you get. And like the day after my guided Trip, I was laying here on the bed, and so what's cool is you you trip to this to this playlist that's been curated by these scientists, and these these songs, and there are songs from all over the world. There's classical music, there's Bach motz Art, you know, but then there's like shamonic you know, chants and drumming from Peru or Mexico, and there's also like the Beatles

and dr and it's very vast, you know. So you listen to this playlist, it guides you through these emotions and feelings purposefully, and some of us pretty intense. And then you as you kind of are coming out of your experience. You are resonating with these like massive feelings of gratitude and warmth, and the music that I heard, I've never heard music like that in my life. Like you could just feel it in your bones, like your cells. You're just like it's running through you in a way

that I've never never experienced before. And what's cool is you can go back to that playlist anytime and tap into those same feelings and you journal about it, and you're able to go right back to kind of where you were and be able to somewhat verbalize, you know, what you experienced. So the next day after the thing, I was laying on my bed and re listening to this playlist and Boch came on and it was this sorrowful tragic number and the word tragedy popped in my head.

It was like boom, tragedy. And then I was like, wait, what if the new album is formulated like a modern tragedy. It's a modern tragedy. I've been through a tragedy and so as America, you know. And from there it was just like like just off the rills, like boom boom boom, songs, album title, concept visuals, like all of it it was crazy. I thought about Romeo and Juliet, and I thought about Starcross. The word Starcross that popped in my head, and I thought,

I need to write a song called Starcross. And I love the definition of Starcross because it's two people who love each other so much, but they just cannot make it work because even the universe is against them, the stars are against them, they're ill faded, they were doomed from the beginning, but there's love there. And I resonate a lot with that, with my personal story and what I've been through, and so I was like, Okay, Starcross, I have to write that. So the next day I

went in the studio we wrote Starcross. It was our fortieth song that we had written. What was the hardest song that you felt you wrote for this album? Just from an emotional perspective, M let me look at little song list. There's fifteen. There's five songs in each act. In most tragedies, like an artistic sense, there's three acts.

There's the exposition setting up a scene. Act two the rise of the conflict and the downfall of the characters, the heartbreak, and then Act three is like the resolution the acceptance, you know, the reflection and the hope toward the future or whatever. So there's five songs in each act. So there's a song on here called camera roll, and man, it sucks me up bad, like it still does. I,

you know, after the divorce and everything. You know, you have all these photos of your life, your old life, in your phone, and you don't know what to do with them. You're like, do I delete this? This person didn't die and these are still my memories, but like, I don't want to see him every day. Well, you know, you get to scrolling on your phone, like one late night and you just wander down this dark alley that was all these wonderful memories at one point, and then

you're just fucking stabbed in the heart. And and I was walking past I did that, And I was walking past the piano that I have in my house. And I'm not a piano player really, but these keys, these certain keys like stuck out to me, and this melody kind of came out. I don't know how really, the beginning lyrics, they just came out too. And it's don't go through your camera roll so much. You don't know that you forgot what a trip the way you can

flip through all the good parts of it. I shouldn't have done it chronological order and nothing the torch or scroll too far back, that's what you get. I don't want to see him that I can't delete. It just doesn't feel right yet, not yet, And like I just like could barely get through. I was like the ugly kind of like a little kid cry. It's like, just like snot run it on my face. So yeah, anyway, that one was really hard. There's a bunch on there.

I mean they're pretty raw. Like I'm sharing a lot about my inner feelings and that's like it's not always easy for me. How do you feel that it changed your perspective of yourself. One thing that happened during my trip was I came face to face with myself as a nine year old girl, and it was exactly me. I saw her, and I immediately felt this like intense

compassion for her, this empathy. I started performing publicly around age nine, and so being on a stage learning how to please all these other people that you don't know before you even really know how to delegate your own emotions within yourself. That's when my life kind of started to change from like normal childhood to like something else, you know, And I thankful for all of it because it made me who I am. But it's also, you know,

it's weird. It's a weird thing. So I came face to face with her at one point and I said, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I gave her hugs, I gave her kisses, and I've felt for her because I can be very hard on myself. I can be like my worst critic, you know, and so I'm the first to beat myself up over a flawless performance. That I'll find something that like no one would have noticed, and I'll just shred myself for it.

And so like it taught me. It showed me to ease up on myself that I am, like, I am good at loving, I am good at being a friend. I am I've been through a lot, and I deserve love. And it really gave me compassion for myself, which I think is really a beautiful thing. You know. I had all these childhood memories pop up that I hadn't remembered. I mean, they're and they played out in my mind like I was watching a home video. But it was me,

and it was actually things that actually happened. Like there was a time in my life where and I haven't talked about this really, but where I had us a little bit of an eating disorder for like a little period of time in my early teens. And now looking back, I got it all like it all downloaded in this moment.

It's like, oh, yeah, I was wanting to relieve pressure of some kind, relief pressure, find some control, you know, And it gave me compassion for the choices I made, Like it kind of just allowed me to take a step back and see, you know, we all we're all trying to figure it out. You mentioned, wow, I actually had needing disorder. Yeah, and I guess you just buried that away in your mind. I think I wrote it off being like, no, I wasn't an eating disorder. No, it was. It was it was a very it was

it was about with bulimia. I mean I didn't and I didn't talk to anyone about it. I didn't know how to because I didn't didn't really know that it was like bad. I mean I just instinctively, some for some reason, felt that I needed to do that. Do you think part of that psychology you're just feeling so much pressure has persisted, which is why it reoccurred to

you during this more recent trip. Maybe. So yeah, I mean it, I guess just showed me that, like everyone has their way of dealing with pressure and need you know, you want to control more. I've learned a lot about control. You want to control when you don't feel safe. Yeah, and that's I mean, I can really relate to that.

Whatever is in your outside environment that is making you feel out of control, it just makes you grab on even harder, you know, So knowing that you're doing that and why you're doing that can at least maybe help you like stop. Yeah, I can completely relate to that. So I've never tried psychedelics, but as a neuroscientist, I'm obviously fascinated biotopic and neuroscientists have said that from a neurological point of view, psychedelics do put the brain into

this childlike state of awe and wonder. And one of my favorite psychologists, her name is Alison gott Nick, she studies child development, has said that basically babies and children are tripping all the time, just such a fun and like colorful way of kind of understanding what it's like. Did you feel that that kind of childlike alle and what kinds of things did you find yourself marveling at. I mean, you are just like astounded kind of at the beauty and the intricacy of the of life and nature.

You're like, oh my god. Any you think about, you have compassion for the earth as a living thing. You know. I just think that ultimately, psychedelics, one thing that I love about them is that it's they cause death to the human ego, and the human ego has caused so many problems over you know, over time. I mean, it's

like it puts things into perspective. And I was talking to my friend who is the doctor that I did the trip with, and one thing that I loved how she phrased this, and it's so true, is she said, in regards to psychedelics, you know, it's as if you're standing on a stage looking out to an audience, but the curtains are only open about a foot normally. This is she's talking about like in your normal, everyday human existence.

But she's like, these plants, they take that curtain and they open it all the way around three sixty degrees, so that you can look around and go, oh my god, there's so much more. There's so much more going on that I get to see an experience on the emotional spectrum, the creative spectrum. That's one thing is like after the trip, you know, here I am with all these new songs that I'm getting ready to put out into the world, some of which are super sarcastic or angry, sad, lonely.

I mean, there's like a huge range of emotion through what I like the past year that I've been there. Definitely after the trip, I was like, hold on, do I need to delete some of these songs? Like they they're definitely not coming from a super enlightened like person's perspective. But I mean I think that that's okay. I don't feel like I would be doing myself a full service as a creator and as someone who went through something to deny myself the expression of some of these emotions

that are pretty fucking negative. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. Casey's Psychedelic Trip helped her access the full range of emotion she experienced this past year, and she's poured it all into her new album the Casey's commitment to being honest about who she is in her music is nothing new, and that presented some difficulties, especially early on in her career. Casey got her started Nashville at age nineteen when she was

right songs for other country music stars to sing. You're primarily writing for other people at this point, and then at a certain point you realize, hey, wait a second, I don't want to give these songs away. I want to keep them for myself, right. What was that like? Well, that's so I did notice a shift start happening where you know, I would love to pitch songs to artists

and get cuts and make a living that way. But then I started stumbling upon these songs that, for whatever reason, just didn't feel like they would really apply to anyone else but me, and I thought, well, maybe if I did get the chance, like I would, I would put these out. Was there a particular lyric or a particular song where you thought that for the first time? Can you share what that was? Well, it's some of the songs that were on my first album, Sam Trailer, Different Park.

It was more of a vibe. It was more of like, oh, this feels like me you know, and then once I kind of set those aside and then started thinking, okay, like I could I could do this. I think when songs like Merry Go Round and Follow Your Arrow and things like that started coming out, So there was a moment where you really wanted Marry Go Around to be the first single, and you do get pushed back from music execs. Can you describe how that conversation went so

Merry Go Round? First off, let me just say in country music there is quite a formula. There's a formula when it comes down to deciding which songs are going to be popular, which songs are going to be pushed, which songs are going to get like radio play, And that formula has worked for a while, you know what I mean. And so when it comes to labels deciding what they're gonna put their money towards, they're looking at what is going to be the least risky for them,

you know, as a business. So that's why there's a huge rub when it comes to like art and commerce. There just always has there always will be. Merry Go Round doesn't fit into those parameters down Trod. It's sarcastic, it's depressing, it's real it's truthful, it's biting. Tempo wise, it's not it doesn't sound like a lot of things that were being popular at that time, like on the radio. So I can see why as business people they'd be like, oh no, this is like a no for listeners who

aren't familiar with Mary ground. Do you mind just sharing some of the lyrics from the chorus. Sure. So it's a little bit of a trope on like the classic, like a classic nursery rhyme. You know, it's like Mama's hooked on Mary, Kay brother is hooked on Mary, Jane, Daddy's hooked on Mary. Tutors down Marry and Mary. Quite contrary, we get boards, we get married, and just like dust, we settle in this town on this broke and Mary go around, realm, realm. We go where it stops, nobody knows,

but it ain't slowing down this Marry go around. So you know, it's it's not like a happy go lucky leg bob. It's but it's real and it's um it's pointing the mirror inward. And I don't think that. You know, a lot of people don't want to hear songs like that. They don't want to hear songs that make them think, you know, if they're like if they're bopping around and they're in the minivan, like taking kids to school, maybe they don't want to go that deep. Maybe they just

want to stay up here. And that's fine. But for my first song that I wanted to put out there, I said, this is what I want to say, and if it's the only song I get to put out, I'm fine with that. Let's see what happens. And it did go um I can't even really remember, but it did get some good radio play, it got some some good traction. I think it made it to the top ten or very near it, and in one Country Song of the Year, it want a Grammy for Song of

the Year. So I was like, take that, y'all. It's just like, it's like, why don't you just trust trust me? Trust me. I'm going to know myself way better than you know, and I know what's going to be best for me, and that may not always be like a freaking home run, but like it was though when you knew it, I love it. I think what's so striking to me about your story? And I think a lot

of listeners will be so curious to know this. It is so hard to break into the music industry, and so you can easily imagine convincing yourself in the moment, Okay, I'm just going to cave a little bit, okay, just to break in, just to get a career going, and then at that point I will stand my grand and then I'll do And yet you were, you were absolutely

resolute from the outset. Well, it's it's a backwards way of thinking the other way because so then what you've broken in and you've now convinced everyone that you're this one thing, and then you do a one eighty on them and they're confused and they don't know what the

hell you are. That sounds like hell to me, Like I would never do that, Like I would rather put my head down and work like exponentially harder at what I really am and what I'm passionate about and end up with less fans or less success than to have this like mansion on a hill filled with all these awards, you know, for things that I am not super proud of. Like that just seems like a really like sad. It just seems sad, And I mean, art is just this

like it's not supposed to be digestible for everyone. You talked about things that are pretty unconventional to talk about in country music right certainly at the time, like homosexuality, recreational drug youth, not going to church. How did you respond to that pushback. It's interesting because if you look at the history of country music, it is a genre based on songs that tell stories, and sometimes stories aren't

always positive or mainstream. And I mean, country music is supposed to be for people who are experiencing heartache, real life struggle, jobs, divorced, heartbreak, you know, death like all this, and so in my mind, you know, the most country thing you can do is to like just talk about it all, you know. So I don't feel like I'm

doing anything or that I've been doing anything revolutionary. I mean, I feel like I'm just doing my job as a songwriter to just take these lenses that I've been given and just absorb all this stuff and it comes out most of the time and kind of a country way. I just can't help that, you know. But yeah, yeah, I found it very powerful that so many people want to put the rebellious rebel label on you and you consistently reject it. Like you said, I mean, is it

rebellious just to share your life story? Right? Right? Is it rebellious? Right? Is it? What's so rebellious about championing all different kinds of people? If that's rebellious? And I guess, hell yeah, okay, I'm a rebel. Count me in for that matter. Was this a trait you had to cult of date or does it just come naturally to you to stand your ground in this way? I really think it comes naturally, Like I don't ever really remember it

not being there. I mean, even my dad, so the other day on the family thread, we were talking about I was born early. I was like, I was a PREMI so I was a month early. And he was like, you were gonna do it on your terms from day one, Like you you came early. You said this is what we're doing and this is how I'm doing it. And

it's always been like that. I guess, Well, it does seem like you've You've also made a lot of intentional choices within your life to stay independent and autonomous, right, Like you don't have the entourage that you see a lot of people carry around at them at your level. I loved the story of how when you were traveling with your band, you opted not to sleep in the bedroom for the star but instead you grabbed a bunk bed along with the rest of your band and your career. Yeah,

I wanted to be with everybody for some reason. I'm just like because, like I said, I realized early on, like wow, Okay, being an artist is very self self involved. And I've seen examples in you know, in the industry of people that like lost touch with reality a little bit, and that's so sad to me. There's like nothing scarier. So I just want to stay that way. I want to stay attached to real people, real emotion. Like I've tried really hard to stay tuned into that, you know

what I mean, or I try. I think anyway, do you feel in any way that this, you know, resolute commitment to authenticity and being yourself has any downsides either in your professional or personal life. Well, I mean you can get You've got to check yourself because you can get so used to having it your way and like, you know, and speaking your mind about that that you kind of can forget that there are other good ways too.

That just isn't It's not always your way, isn't always the best, or just because an idea was yours doesn't mean it's the best. So I think like reminding yourself that to trust other people's viewpoints, trust other people's collaboration and their advice, like is always good For somebody like me that's very headstrong, it has learned to be very self reliant. I can just simmered back a little bit

sometimes you know, it's like, come on, shut up. But ultimately, though, if like at the end of the day, if it's interesting, I'm like, I have this like really like lightning fast assessment just to know whether something is like right for me or not. And I don't like to waste time like entertaining something you're going down a road. If I just know that it's just not at the end of the day, it's just not me. I just don't really

even mess with it, you know. I think what's interesting is that Golden Hour was such a deeply personal album, but it also coincided with this incredibly warm, rich love story. And I think it's one thing to be vulnerable and open when you're in a really good place. It's like next level to be open and vulnerable when you're not

in a good place. Oh yeah, man, I think my whole life, I've I'm the older sister, you know, I've been the performer, and I think like being that strong, kind of like unfazed person was just kind of a go to for me. And I realized now as a older that that's the least strong thing that you can do. Is like, to break open in front of someone and really be vulnerable is one of the strongest things that you can do. And so this there was a period where I was like, I'm crumbling inside, I am not

worthy of love. I suck at it. I'll never I don't want to get attached anybody ever again, felt really burned by it, you know what I mean, And so I have to remind myself that those feelings are even more relatable to people than like this, you know, fuzzy like blissed out like Dopamine Love album. I mean that that's more of a rarity to feel sadly than the other, you know, So I think that it'll be even more

relatable to people, you know. I went into this feeling like, oh my gosh, like I'm probably I'm gonna be crying in front of these people that I don't know super well, like whatever, but eventually at that at some point that just goes out the window. And I mean I was just broken open and sobbing and heaving and just letting go of all this stagnant energy that you know, you like I was holding onto, and that alone is like therapeutic.

You know. One thing that's interesting to me is what comes after golden hour nighttime and so like I'm in a nighttime period and what's cool about that is that there will be light again. At the end of our conversation, I asked Casey if there were any songs about change on her upcoming album. There's a song on there called If I Was an Angel, and it's like it's basically saying, if I was an angel, I wouldn't have to change my ways. You wouldn't have to change your ways if

I was an angel. I mean, everything would be just fine if I was an angel. If I was an angel, I'd never have to change. I'd never have to change. But something's got to change. A slight change of plans is created an executive produced by me Maya Shunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board, associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound

design and mix engineers Ben Holliday and Jason Gambrell. Thanks also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. I really appreciate you

and your perspective. I love when an interview goes far beyond an interview and it turns into a real conversation, and like, I crave that a lot, and I like told you guys shit that I haven't literally haven't told anyone else, so