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From Kacey Musgraves, country tunes with a twist

Kacey Musgraves grew up in the tiny east Texas town of Golden, a place best known for its annual Sweet Potato Festival, which Oprah Winfrey spotlighted on her television show twice.

Kacey Musgraves performs at the 2013 CMT Music Awards at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, in Nashville, Tenn. (Donn Jones/AP Photo)
Kacey Musgraves performs at the 2013 CMT Music Awards at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, in Nashville, Tenn. (Donn Jones/AP Photo)Read more

Kacey Musgraves grew up in the tiny east Texas town of Golden, a place best known for its annual Sweet Potato Festival, which Oprah Winfrey spotlighted on her television show twice.

Musgraves, one of three opening acts for Kenny Chesney at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday, is a country singer. So you'd expect that her major-label debut album, Same Trailer, Different Park, would romanticize her rural roots, much the same way standard country radio does, with anodyne songs celebrating blue-collar values and small-town life.

Instead, "Merry Go 'Round," the Same Trailer hit single, displays a welcome skepticism and wordplay that mark Musgraves as a sharp-eyed songwriter too smart to pander to her audience. "Mama's hooked on Mary Kay,/ Brother's hooked on Mary Jane,/ Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down," she sings. "Mary, Mary, quite contrary,/ We get bored so we get married / Just like dust we settle in this town."

"I wanted to use my brain a little," Musgraves, 24, says, speaking from her home in Nashville. She explains the ambition that courses through the catchy tunes on Same Trailer, which has gotten its share of media attention for the lyrics on songs like the be-true-to-yourself "Follow Your Arrow." (Sample lyric: "Make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys, /Or kiss lots of girls, if that's what you're into." Sample headline, from Billboard: "Is Kacey Musgraves' 'Follow Your Arrow' Too Racey for Country Radio?")

Musgraves spent her early teen years dressed up in a cowgirl outfit, singing Patsy Cline and Patsy Montana songs, and touring around the East Texas mini-Opry circuit. Then she started writing songs of her own, following the advice of a guitar teacher who also schooled Miranda Lambert. (She co-wrote Lambert's hit single "Mama's Broken Heart.") The singer-guitarist moved to Austin for a year after high school, then headed to Music City, where she finished seventh on the USA Network singing competition show Nashville Star in 2007.

In naming her favorite songwriters, the first she mentions is John Prine, whose influence can be heard in such droll, cutting character studies as her current single "Blowin' Smoke," whose waitress protagonist has to admit she's lying to herself, just like everybody else. Other favorites: "Patty Griffin. Mindy Smith. Willie Nelson, of course. Ryan Adams I like a lot. Really anybody who has something to say, and their own way of saying it."

"I really do love old-time country music," Musgraves says. "I want to make music that sounds traditional but doesn't say traditional things. I like saying something that's a little bit different."