“Kiss the Sky,” Maren Morris’ rousing anthem that anchors animated hit The Wild Robot, is ostensibly about a robot helping a goose fly. To its singer, it has a whole other layer of meaning.
“If I go internal, I realize it’s about my son,” says Morris, referring to Hayes, now nearly 5. “The whole ‘You don’t know until you go’ mentality. Try it, because what’s the worst that can happen? You crash. But everyone has.”
Anyone who has followed Morris’ career might be inclined to find encoded in “You don’t know until you go” a more personal artistic message, too. Morris, after all, has been taking her own deep-breath leaps lately.
Despite emerging as a country star — with top 10 hits like “My Church,” “Rich” and “I Could Use a Love Song” right out of the Nashville gate in 2016 — the 34-year-old has been steadily moving away from country in recent years. Morris’ arc began to bend toward pop in 2018 with the crossover smash “The Middle,” followed in short order by top 20 hit “The Bones” in 2019. The breakup letter officially came in fall 2023 with EP The Bridge, where on songs “Get the Hell Out of Here” and “The Tree” she made textual what had long stayed between the lines. “I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom / I’m taking an ax to the tree,” she sings on “The Tree.” A series of interviews about her painful split from Music Row followed. The industry closed ranks. Morris held her ground.
Not fitting in has been a hallmark of Morris’. Traits some might see as virtues — pop-star vocal chops, a progressive sensibility, a contrarian intelligence — made the singer-songwriter a square peg on country’s conformist board, precipitating her departure. “It was a little like a limb being cut off,” she says. “My life has changed immensely from that choice. But it’s for the best.”
What’s emerged since might fittingly be called Maren 2.0. After The Bridge, this summer brought Intermission, a gem of an EP studded with throwback pop sounds and serious themes. And now there are “Kiss the Sky” (shortlisted for an Oscar) and a second Robot song, the melancholic gut punch “Even When I’m Not,” that plays over the closing credits. Toss in some recent personal changes, including a divorce from fellow country songwriter Ryan Hurd, and you can almost feel a new model tumbling off the line.
On a recent afternoon, Morris was sitting in a mostly empty AMC theater at the Grove. The space had been converted into a makeshift green room. In a few hours, she’d take the stage as part of a holiday concert in which she’d sing “Kiss the Sky,” backed on piano by decorated composer Kris Bowers, who scored The Wild Robot. A slew of pop names, including Ryan Tedder and Robin Thicke, filled the lineup. Morris’ vocal performance — from heartfelt whisper to inspirational crescendo — would stand miles apart from everyone else.
“Sky” began when DreamWorks execs and NBCUniversal music guru Mike Knobloch reached out to Morris two years ago — when she was still a country star — seeking a song for the Roz-Brightbill training scene. All they had to show were some early renderings. She and a team started writing anyway.
After intensive back-and-forths with Bowers, Knobloch and director Chris Sanders, a three-minute pop song evolved into something bigger, especially after Bowers orchestrated the scene. The final product is unusual for an original film song, composed of quasi-symphonic movements that take us through phases of the training. “I was sitting and watching it at TIFF and I was like, ‘I can’t believe this came to fruition,’ ” Morris says.
The singer’s departure from country echoes the exits of other performers — Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, The Chicks — each of whom left with their own motivations (and degrees of willingness). “We all had our different reasons for walking away,” Morris says, nodding in her case to a belief in women’s, racial and LGBTQ+ rights that she says felt increasingly at odds with the Nashville establishment. “It wasn’t really a plan for me. I was just starting to see my voice get smaller and smaller and the ceiling lower and lower. I just felt like, ‘I’m going to have to sacrifice a lot of comforts to be able to do what I want to do.’ ”
Morris says she understands — and briefly considered — the alternative. “I don’t shame or judge anyone who wants to stay and do the carousel. A lot of people are scared to lose money or fans. For me it was like, I don’t really want to do that. I’ve got finite time here and I’d like to live with myself and sleep at night.”
The tribal response, she says, was punishing. “You feel alone at the beginning. And it’s intentionally done to make you feel isolated from the community when you veer away from or criticize it.” But some friends in country — she doesn’t say who — pulled her through.
It also helps to have places to veer to. Morris is finishing up a new album with several non-country producers, including Jack Antonoff (who also produced “Get the Hell Out of Here”), and in addition to pop could go in a more alternative direction à la Folklore-era Swift.
Knobloch says Morris’ vocal tools will open doors. “Very few people can sing like Maren can — whether it’s a three-octave banger or something that needs heart and soul.” Bowers notes that channeling her life events toward universal truths also helps. “Everything she’s doing is so personal. It invites us to empathize and makes us reflect on these things,” he says.
Perhaps because of her new direction, Morris has been unusually invested in “Kiss the Sky.” She rented out a theater to show the movie to her friends in Nashville (she has made a point of continuing to live there). And she gets visibly excited when, walking through the AMC lobby after a sound check, she comes across a themed soft drink for The Wild Robot. For all the battle scars, Morris can have a childlike excitement about being part of an Oscar campaign and the chance to give a gift to her son besides. (“Kiss the Sky,” she says, is Hayes’ favorite song of hers.)
“The last two years have been wildly uncomfortable,” she says, “but that’s how I know it was right.”
This story first appeared in a January stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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