Maren Morris Shares What Music Shaped Her—and What's on Her Playlist Now

If you ever wanted to know who is on your favorite singer's playlist, or what albums inspired the latest “it girl” the most, tune in for Marie Claire’s resident music franchise Listen Up. In this interview series, we ask musicians about their listening habits and the specific records that informed their taste—and inherently their journey as an artist.

Maren Morris is currently backstage at The Tonight Show. She's zooming with us in the midst of a hectic week of promotion for her new album D R E A M S I C L E. But while most would be overwhelmed by all the parties and appearances, it's nothing compared to the past few years she’s had. She got divorced, came out as bisexual, and made headlines for criticizing sexism and racism within the country music industry. But through it all, she chose optimism.

“I’m going to find happiness if it fucking kills me,” Morris, 35, tells Marie Claire, joking that that’s what she should’ve titled D R E A M S I C L E.

Optimism is the crux of her fourth studio album, which dropped on May 9 (her first LP on Columbia Records instead of its country subsidiary, Columbia Nashville). It’s about the moments after love is lost, when, even if you’re still healing, you embrace radical self-acceptance and the belief that something better will come along.

“No one loves change, and I think, fortunately, everything in my life has changed, certainly in the last album cycle, but even the last five years since I became a mother,” the Nashville-based artist says. “I feel like everything really crystallized and made apparent the things that don't fit me anymore. So this record reflects the other side of those growing pains and changes.”

Morris admits it can be "difficult" to hold out hope in both her personal life and with the current political landscape, but notes it's also all we have. “As long as my compass is my songwriting—and that has been my vehicle of healing, therapy, camaraderie with friends and collaborators, a portal to my fans and listeners, and a vehicle to take me around the world—that gives me defiant optimism,” she shares. “But also, sit with your discomfort…I think that I had to sit in that discomfort, write my way through it, and go to actual therapy, as well.”

Now that the Grammy-winner is on the other side of that, she hopes her new project can inspire fans to “turn rain into rainbows” and “pain into potential,” as she sings on the opening track, “lemonade.”

Below, Morris shares her recommendations for songs that have helped heal her, artists who have inspired her, and one beloved Céline Dion track.

There are so many—all female songwriters—but a songwriter who blended country music, Americana, gothic, a little bit of soul, pop, and rock elements, it has to be Patty Griffin's [1998] album, Flaming Red, produced by Jay Joyce. I listen to it every two months just to deep dive back into my childhood, but it's the most ambitious, cohesive, messy, timeless album.

I have the lyrics of one of the songs, “Christina,” on my shoulder blade; that was one of my first tattoos when I was 18 or 19. The Chicks turned me onto her with the song “Let Him Fly” on their Fly record. I was like, Who wrote this? Looking at the credits, it was Patty Griffin, and I went into her archive of music I had not heard before and was blown away.

The first album I ever bought with my own money was The Cardigans’s First Band on the Moon. I went to CD Warehouse, a place you could go to buy vinyl, CDs, tapes, used or new. I loved the song “Lovefool.” That whole record was so good, and it started a very long obsession with The Cardigans.

There are a few, but the one at the top of my list is Lemonade by Beyoncé. It was one of those canon events where I remember where I was when I watched the film;I had chills. It was also at the beginning of my first record being made, so there's something nostalgic about almost 10 years ago, me coming to fruition in my own artistry, but also being so deeply inspired by Lemonade. And I still am.

I would've loved to have been alive and maybe a legal teenager able to drink and go tour and party with Fleetwood Mac. Like a Daisy Jones & The Six vibe—the fashion, the songwriting, vulnerability, but also the audacity and drama that was happening on the road. I definitely feel like I'd be in my “Gold Dust Woman” era and would've loved to experience that. I would've been a groupie for Stevie Nicks.

Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies of all time. The scene with Kate Hudson [as Penny Lane] as she’s seeing Russell’s girlfriend, and they're playing “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” by Elton John—I think that's such a heartbreaking, disturbingly relatable moment.

Definitely [Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 performance of] “Silver Springs.” Stevie staring down, Lindsey Buckingham has to be one for the ages.

Also, once a year to inspire myself for tour rehearsals, or just to be like, Fuck yeah, I'll go watch Beyoncé’s Homecoming. The fact that she did that in a much smaller venue than she's normalized to, and making such a set out of it, then the camera work, and just making it so seamless. The choreography, the drum line—the whole thing was one of the most inspiring pieces of visual media. That's one of those mic-drop live moments where I'm like, Holy shit, this is the level. She'll always set the bar for that.

Dolly [Parton]. We need Beyoncé headlining one of the three nights. It’s going to be an all-female headliner lineup. I want to hear all my favorites in karaoke—Chaka Khan, Sheryl Crow—The Japanese House is someone I always love seeing at a festival, and one of the only men allowed is Hozier.

When I hear Julia Michaels write something, I'm like, “I love you…but I hate you because you're brilliant.” I always come back to her song, “All Your Exes,” because it's a hook that's so clever and something that we've all felt.

I’ve always loved Dua Lipa’s writing. I always find myself in the car, either by myself or with my son, bumping Dua. I feel like Future Nostalgia got a lot of us through COVID. She seems so down-to-earth, but also worldly and beautiful, and I feel like she's got great food taste. We could write, record our song, go get an amazing meal, and then have too many martinis.

My Bleachers hat. It says, “New Jersey's Finest New Yorker.” It was sent to me after [Jack Antonoff and I] worked together, and I was like, This is perfect. I love how simple it is, and it goes with every outfit.

I also have a hat that says, “There were nights when the wind was so cold,” which is the opening of [Céline Dion’s] “It's All Coming Back to Me Now.” I’m a fan of weird merch.

Labrinth or Patty [Griffin’s song] “Nobody's Crying.” That’ll always get the waterworks flowing from me.

I have a proclivity to always putting on Céline Dion, “It's All Coming Back to Me Now.” It's a seven-minute song, but every girl I know knows its entirety, and by the end of it, we're all hoarse because we’re screaming every single verse. This is not for male consumption. This is our inner theater kids coming out.

I always like to be really dramatic in my car and feel like I'm in a David Lynch film, so I'm blasting Björk’s “army of me.”

If I’m exercising, probably Charli xcx. That's a good warmup and cool down. Brat is a great workout record. It's not too long of an album, so you're not going to be running or working out for more than an hour.

Rilo Kiley, “Silver Lining.” Defiantly optimistic.

I think the song “holy smoke.” The lyrics of the bridge breakdown are, “Choose your teacher / Choose your trope /It all goes up in holy smoke / Whether you believe it or you don't / It all goes up in holy smoke.” I know that's so simple, but that was sort of the crux of being like, “We're all going through shit. Let's give each other some grace through it, and we all end up in the same place in some version of events.” It's not the most optimistic, but I feel like it's the most human.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.