Twenty Greatest Singles of the CU Era: Maren Morris, “The Tree”

“The Tree”

Maren Morris

Written by Maren Morris, Jimmy Robbins, and Laura Velz

2023

“The Tree” exposes the damage done when a toxic and destructive community calls itself a family, creating a sense of obligation within its most sensitive members to try to heal the damage. The family’s promise is also its prison, trapping their scapegoats with the tried and true adage that you never turn your back on your family, no matter how many knives they’ve embedded in it.

“I’m done fillin’ a cup with a hole in the bottom,” Morris sings, “I’m taking an axe to the tree.” As she severs herself from the “rot at the roots” which “are the root of the problem,” she’s freeing herself of the generational trauma that is poisoning her, blaming the dysfunction on the black sheep that dares to disturb the papered over pain and hurt that plagues the family. She has her a-ha moment: reconciliation and healing were never options because she was the only one operating in good faith. “Spent 10,000 hours trying to fight it with flowers, and the tree was already on fire.”

It’s fitting that this is the final entry on this list, because country music has never felt more untethered from the gatekeepers of Music Row and their dutiful friends at country radio and throughout the media. A wave of compelling young artists who finally make good on the inclusive and expansive promise of nineties country. They’ve cut themselves off from the roots to isolate themselves from the poison, but all of the good fruits of the tree travel with them.

“The Tree” is the glorious release from the chains of the past that hold us back, ones that only remained attached so long as we were convinced that they couldn’t be removed. The future has never looked brighter across the country universe, and the path ahead burns as bright as the flames we’ve left behind.

Additional Listening:

More explorations of generational trauma