Amanda Shires has long been striving to bring complexity to the subject of gender in a conservative genre. A staple in Nashville’s country music scene since moving from her native Texas in 2004, she broke through with 2016’s intimately observational My Piece of Land, reflecting on her pregnancy and the bittersweet realities of stay-at-home parenting. In 2019 she co-founded the country supergroup the Highwomen alongside Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile and Natalie Hemby as a direct response to their frustrations with country rock radio sidelining women. Alongside her demands for greater racial and gender inclusivity in the genre, she has also been frank on the matter of abortion, not least with The Problem, a 2020 duet on the subject with musician husband Jason Isbell (since re-recorded as Our Problem with a notable cast of guests: Cyndi Lauper, Angie Stone, Linda Perry, Peaches). Although fans have heralded her as a punk kind of country artist, for Shires, her progressive stance comes as a matter of fact, as she told one US magazine: “Fuck it, who needs a career if we have no rights to our bodies?”
