Maren Morris & Friends Take Fans to Church at Tin Pan South
"It's so good to be back here in Nashville," Morris said when her turn to perform came.
Maren Morris was joined by co-writers and friends Ryan Beaver, Ryan Hurd and Lucie Silvas Saturday night (April 9), for the final day of the 24th Annual Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival. Throughout the evening’s writers round at Nashville’s the Listening Room Cafe, it was evident she was happy to be back on the stage as a writer with her friends.
“It’s so good to be back here in Nashville,” Morris said when her turn to perform came. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve done a round. It’s like an old hat.”
For Morris, getting back on the stage in a writers round was natural. She kicked off her performance with “Rich,” a song she co-wrote with Jessie Jo Dillon and Laura Veltz that she had never done live before. The tongue-in-cheek song will be featured on her album Hero, due out June 3.
Hurd, seated beside Morris, followed next with “On An Island,” a song that will be featured on Florida Georgia Line’s upcoming album. He admitted that he hasn’t played guitar in three months, asking the audience to bear with him as he began the song which featured rapid fire lyrics from the singer.
Morris and Hurd have written and performed several songs together over the years and one of those cuts include Tim McGraw’s “Last Turn Home” off of his 2014 release, Sundown Heaven Town. As Morris explained, she and Hurd didn’t know if the song was good at the time they wrote it.
“I think it actually means more to me now than it did the day we wrote it. Sometimes some of your songs know you better than you know them in that moment,” she explained. “This song has meant so much to me. Tim McGraw recorded it. It’s been fun for me to do it and show my version of it. It’s a special song for us and I love playing it.”
Like Morris explained, songwriters don’t often know the journey of their own songs and this is exactly what happened with a song Hurd wrote called “I’ll Be the Moon,” which Dierks Bentley recently recorded for his forthcoming album Black. He says it’s his favorite song he ever wrote but he was convinced no one would ever sing it, as the song deals with a man struggling with the love triangle his girl has put him in.
One day, he and Morris were at a bar when her phone lit up with a text from Bentley asking if she’d sing on the song with him as he decided to make it a duet on his next album. Last week, Bentley released the song much to Hurd’s disbelief. Hurd and Morris then sang the emotional song together.
Highlights throughout the set included Beaver’s poignant “Kristofferson” as well as Silva’s beautiful “Pull the Stars Down,” which she dedicated to her sister-in-law. Morris impressed with her emotional “I Wish I Was,” which she said changed her perspective on being an artist.
Morris closed her performance with a rousing sing-along of “My Church” that converted the packed listening room into a church choir.
“It’s nice to be a songwriter tonight,” she concluded. “This song changed my world and is still changing my world. It feels so good to sing it at Tin Pan South in Nashville.”
