Imagine, just imagine walking into the biggest night of your life. Like the moment everyone in music dreams about. You hear your name called out at the Grammy Awards. And not just for some small niche trophy. You just won Album of the Year for Golden Hour. It just happened. You are standing in front of the entire music industry. And you, a country artist from small town Texas, have just beaten out some of the biggest names across pop, hip hop, and rock.

She would later describe her early songwriting as being primarily about boys and heartbreak, which, you know, tracks for a teenager. But the critical foundation wasn’t the subject matter. It was the discipline of sitting down and constructing a song, verse chorus bridge, learning rhyme schemes and meter.

• The first country album to win Album of the Year at the Grammys in 15 years
• This wasn’t supposed to happen, right. Country just doesn’t win Album of the Year
• This is a case study in strategic authenticity
• She was born in Golden, Texas, a town with a population of around 200 people
• To understand Kacey Musgraves, you have to understand this very early commitment to songwriting as a craft