The Highwomen released their debut album on September 6.
Amanda Shires, a singer in the band and the founder, was inspired to create an all-female country group in order to combat sexism in the country music community.
The first song of the album does just that in a remake of the famous song "The Highwaymen." In The Highwaymen, each singer dies doing something they love. In "The Highwomen," each singer dies for a noble cause: helping their children cross the border, being a freedom rider, preaching and practicing medicine. Even though these women die, they vow: “We will still remain/And we’ll come back again and again and again and again.”
This album is not easy listening like most country music. It’s not about drinking beer with your friends or girls in short shorts. This is protest music — protesting the death of these women and women being silenced. The Highwomen are protesting the exclusion of women from country music and the assumption that everyone who listens to country can relate to the mainstream messages.
"The Highwomen" returns to what country music has for so long claimed to be about: love. It’s no secret that country alienates people who don’t fit into a narrow definition of normal, but the genre continues to preach inclusivity.
This love is best represented in the song "Crowded Table" in which the group dreams of having, “a house with a crowded table and a place by the fire for everyone.” And they mean everyone.
Along with telling the story of refugees, single parents and freedom riders, the album has one of the first gay country love songs. "If She Ever Leaves Me" is directed at a man who is flirting with the singer’s partner. Brandi Carlile sings, “If she ever gives her careful heart to somebody new/Well, it won’t be for a cowboy like you”, and he has “too much cologne/She likes perfume.” (This is unbelievable writing, please give the album all the awards!)
The specificity of each song is why the album is so powerful. Recognizing your own experience in a song is extremely validating. If a song is written about something, it must be normal, or at least you aren’t alone in the experience. Music should make you feel connected to the world, the singer and other people that are listening, but that can really only happen when you relate to their experiences. By describing a variety of experiences with such vulnerability, The Highwomen are able to reach and impact so many more people than typical country music.
Overall, this album provides depth to a genre that has been lacking. The Highwomen wrote an album that explores loneliness, grief, sexism, homophobia and motherhood. This album has anthem after anthem for women, for gay people, for people who have been left out of country music for so long.
