Maren Morris Gets Candid About How The Pandemic Changed Her

Country princess Maren Morris has left fans waiting three years for a new album. However, they are in luck as the Grammy Award winner will be releasing her long-awaited third studio album very soon (via Pitchfork).

The "My Church" hitmaker kicked off a new era earlier this month with the release of her single "Circles Around This Town." Proving to be popular with listeners, Morris broke the record for most streams for a country song debut by a female musician on Amazon Music, according to MusicRow. In a matter of days, its music video also racked up more than 850,000 views on her official YouTube channel. "I could see the visuals for 'Circles Around This Town' the moment I wrote the song," Morris said to MusicRow, adding, "I've always been so inspired by the industrial, blown-out colors of music videos from the '90s, so Harper Smith and I wanted the aesthetics of this video to reflect that grainy, devil-may-care attitude of all my female heroes from that era: Sheryl, Fiona, Alanis."

On January 13, Morris announced her new album, "Humble Quest," on Instagram. The upcoming project consists of 11 new tracks, including her new single, and will drop on March 25. In her post, Morris also revealed how the pandemic affected her creative process and impacted her personal life.

Along with her new album announcement via Instagram, Maren Morris shared a long note that explained how she felt during the beginning of the pandemic. "For the first time in many years, I was not in control. I wasn't in control of the fate of my career or of taking care of all my people without the promise of touring or even of my body "snapping back" after giving birth to my first child," she said, adding, "Each day my control descended into quiet, unmeasured chaos inside the same four walls."

The singer continued: "To my surprise, I felt not only fear but a huge sigh of relief when I realized I was never really in control. None of us were. The realization was a brutal and beautifully humbling catharsis of this chapter."

Morris revealed the pandemic helped her to become more humble. The "I Could Use a Love Song" hitmaker stated "shooting my mouth off," the death of a friend and producer, becoming a first-time mom, and marriage all heavily contributed to this and allowed her to write the "most authentic and light lyrics that have ever flowed from my pen." Morris questioned whether she's still not "humble enough" but insists that as long as your friends and yourself know where your heart is, that's what matters.