It made perfect sense: The song Kacey Musgraves chose to perform at this year’s CMA Awards is also, by a long measure, the most traditionally country song on her 2024 album Deeper Well. It’s also, perhaps not coincidentally, the only song on the record co-written with her old Music Row writing partners, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. 

Performing entirely by herself on acoustic guitar (one of the only purely solo-acoustic performances of the night), Musgraves delivered a tender, moving take on “The Architect.” Eleven years after making her CMA debut with “Follow Your Arrow,” Musgraves’ stripped-down reading of her Deeper Well ballad was proof that there are still few mainstream country singers more compelling in a solo-acoustic format. 

“The Architect” is a sparse number that finds Musgraves pondering the nature of life and existence; it was written after the 2023 Covenant school shooting in Nashville.

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“It really was born out of organic conversation about things that were happening in the world,” she told the Nashville Scene earlier this year. “Josh [Osborne] said, ‘Yeah, you know, what’s going on here? Can I speak to the architect? Is there a blueprint for any of this?’”

Despite Deeper Well’s lack of any obvious country singles (indeed, none of the songs have so much as charted at country radio) Musgraves racked up an impressive four CMA nominations this year, including Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Musical Event of the Year for “I Remember Everything,” her chart-topping duet with Zach Bryan. She’s also nominated for a number of Grammys for Deeper Well, including Best Country Song for “The Architect.”