Kacey Musgraves pays tribute to John Prine's legacy in new 'Cardinal' video
While preparing to return to the road for the domestic half of the tour supporting her sixth studio album, "Deeper Well," Grammy-winning performer Kacey Musgraves has released a new video for her album track "Cardinal."
The reverb-drenched folk-rock ballad pays homage to the legacy of country and Americana icon John Prine, who died of COVID-19-related complications in 2020.
To People magazine in 2020 after Prine's death, Musgraves noted that the "Sam Stone" writer and vocalist's ability to "turn a phrase but keep it simple" was hugely inspirational to her work.
"They say you shouldn't meet your heroes, but you'll never meet someone as truly genuine as he was. There are two times I've ever seen my dad cry: my Memaw's funeral and the time I got to play with John Prine," she said.
In a zine she released along with her album, Musgraves said: "Unexplainable things started happening, and cardinals started showing up on my doorstep soon after my good friend and mentor, John Prine, passed. He always had a big connection to cardinals and felt they were messengers from the spirit realm. He inspired this song, no doubt,."
Musgraves' fascination with Prine's communication, via birds, with her in the afterlife is explored in a video that, according to a press statement, transpires in "a liminal and mundane place that feels surreal but familiar and ordinary at the same time." It features a take on "an abstract and kaleidoscopic trip through birth, rebirth, nature, memory, dream, and the fragmented pieces of ourselves that eventually transform into different energy when we leave this world behind."
Musgraves out and about in Music City
On May 29, Musgraves appeared onstage during Zach Bryan's "Quittin' Time" tour set at Nissan Stadium to perform her Grammy-winner "I Remember Everything" with him.
However, the night was still young for the "Follow Your Arrow" singer.
Two hours later — across the Cumberland River at Robert's Western World — she joined the band to perform a take on Buck Owens' hit "Act Naturally."
Famously, in 2019, supermodel Gigi Hadid joined Musgraves at Robert's following the 2019 Country Music Association Awards.
"Nashville and you @spaceykacey," Hadid stated via Instagram. "Learned to two-step. V proud. Ate fried pickles. Attempted the guitar. Spent the rest of the night on the bongos. Was a good one."
Musgraves returns to the road on Sept. 4, when her "Deeper Well" tour dates resume in State College, Pennsylvania. On Dec. 7, she is scheduled to perform her tour finale at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. That will bookend a year that saw her celebrate a March album release concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.
For more information on Kacey Musgraves, visit www.kaceymusgraves.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kacey Musgraves video 'Cardinal' is tribute to John Prine