Mother (Commentary)

Thanks for being here and checking out the Bigger album release Special. It's the brand new Sugarland album, their first album In eight years. We're celebrating it with Jennifer and Kristian And we're up to track four on the album. And I know that I've Talked to you guys about this song in the past, and even though It speaks of moms in the sense of like your mother or my mother You told me it started from a much bigger idea, a much bigger Concept of a mother. So tell me about writing this song So the song "Mother," I wanted to write a song using the Statue Of Liberty as a metaphor. And when we started talking about that Kristian jumped onto it. And we were working on something else At the time, I don't remember what other song, but he really Liked the idea and he was like, "Oh, I really like that, okay." Keep talking about it. Keep talking about it Yeah, so we talked about it for a while and then we just Put a pin in it so we could finish what we were doing And then the next day, he showed up with the whole first Verse structure, much of it anyway, I don't remember exactly Yeah But a lot of it, of "Mother," of using, of taking that, because as We talked about it, part of what we were talking about is using The poem that was based on the Statue of Liberty about, you know "Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, your huddled masses " You know, so she'll take you in, feed your friends, okay, right? Because really, she is like the uber mother, right? The Statue of Liberty. She is this caretaker and this woman who also has an eye On everything, and like there's so much that is so maternal about Her. So using that as an inspiration, he jumped off on that And at the same time, it's very much about your own personal mother Yeah At the same time too, about what it is to be an Actual mother or what your actual mother was to you Yeah, my mom passed away when I was 30. So she has existed a little Bit as a legend in my mind now that I've kind of deleted the bad Habits that she had or the whatever it was. And, but in it I talk about her a lot with my own kids who never met her. And This song, at least the first bit, is me reconstructing her for Them, because she would do that. She would take in anyone. And The interesting part to me is that end of that first verse, it's "She'll stay up all night and rub your back when you're crying and" "And even when it's hopeless, she'll keep trying" "She'll keep trying." And there's a, there's another line about when The world tells you things that are false, when it's lying to you Oh yeah, "Help you find the truth when they're all lying" And, and she'll help you find the truth. And it, I, it started to Unlock the Rubik's Cube for me of we really probably can run this Metaphor if we can really do it right. I want someone To get to the end of the song and be thinking about Their mom and never really think about the metaphor Until the third, fourth, fifth time they see it, right? And then when you do, poof, blow your mind Yeah, and then grab it. And it's, it's a harder song to write Even though it's supposed to be a simpler concept. And I'm Really proud that we, we did a good job on that one. You know? It feels like, yeah, go team us, 'cause we got to say what We were trying to say and connect with people we don't know Well, and I'm curious, we're living in a time now where if you look At the political metaphor of this song and the Statue of Liberty as Mother, some people want us to believe that her arms are closed That she doesn't want our huddled masses, that she wants everybody to Stay out. Were you at all concerned about kind of taking on that Greater meaning of this song in the Divisive times that we're living in? I think one of the beautiful things that "Mother" does, and I think One of the beautiful things that this record does, and "Mother" Being a specific example, is that it reminds us that the political Is personal. And it reminds us that that's what it should be at the End of the day. That we need to sit with ourselves and go to our Hopefully highest and best and truest place and ask ourselves the Question. And in this case, the question that we would ask ourselves Is, what would your mama want you to do? What did she teach you? Okay? Did she teach you to be this way? Would she be proud of you Behaving this way? Right? So when you look at that I think then it becomes easy to write about all this When you look at the heart of the matter, it becomes Easy to write about it all. It gets simple real quick