“Space Cowboy”
Kacey Musgraves
Written by Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, and Kacey Musgraves
2018
As break-up records go, “Space Cowboy” is the inverse of “Love Done Gone.”“Love Done Gone.” Here’s another relationship that has run its course– “sunset fades, and love does, too,” as Musgraves sings beautifully in the chorus– without a clear villain or even much animosity. But there’s no closure and certainly no joy to be found in this denouement.
No, “Space Cowboy” is a record of profound loneliness. These partners are sharing the same room (“You look out the window / While I look at you,” is a stark opening line) but it’s as though the full vastness of space has come between them. The great irony of the song is that this cowboy has said he needs some space, when space is truly all that he and Musgraves’ narrator have left.
Musgraves invokes familiar images of Western iconography here, with a vast, open landscape drawing a parallel to her own isolation. Her partner has his Chevy Silverado and a pair of boots by the door, and the gate at the end of the drive is already open for him. And, even though the song’s spare arrangement and the far horizon make it sound like these are the last two people on Earth, Musgraves still makes sure he knows that, “There ain’t room for both of us in this town.”
By the song’s end, Musgraves’ narrator doesn’t sound confident as to where she’s headed next. And, as for Musgraves herself, country radio never got on board; “Merry Go Round,” her debut single, remains her sole top 10 hit, and she’s cracked the top 40 only three other times as a solo artist. “Space Cowboy” didn’t even chart thanks to Musgraves’ refusal to go along with the rigamarole the industry continues to require of artists in order to get any airplay.
Still, the genre is the all the better for being able to count a talent like Musgraves– one who so clearly understands and loves the genre’s history and conventions, even though she doesn’t feel bound by a reverence for tradition– among its fold. She’s a singular artist within the country universe and, to borrow the tagline from The American Astronaut, space is a lonely town.
Additional Listening:
Musgraves’ other singles that were in the running for this feature
- The wry autobiography of “Dime Store Cowgirl,” another brilliant single that failed to chart.
- “Follow Your Arrow,” a plea for inclusiveness that’s as timely now as it was more than a decade back.
More related tracks
- Miranda Lambert’s cover of a Musgraves co-write, “Mama’s Broken Heart.”
- From The American Astronaut, the delightfully weird “Hey Boy,” which doesn’t not predict the stomp-clap-hey movement just a few years on. The Lumineers could never.
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