Ballad Breakdown: Kacey Musgraves Wraps Her Arms Around Listeners in "Arm's Length"
“Arm’s Length,” track 20 on the deluxe edition of Deeper Well, perpetuates Musgraves’ airy, angelic voice found on the album’s original tracklist. However, the breathiness in her vocal delivery is not a result of her newfound feeling of freedom, but of an agonizing yearning for a lost love.
Written by Abby McMorris
Illustrated by Lydia Walker
Kacey Musgraves released the deluxe edition of her most recent studio album, Deeper Well, on August 2, 2024. The album transports listeners to the farthest depths of Musgraves’ underground fairy-filled forest land. Through fantastical lyrics and whimsical sonics, the country singer fills the land with nature’s creatures, the smell of wood, friendship, and heartbreak.
“Arm’s Length” showcases subtle guitar strums that meld with Musgraves’ signature soft, southern sound. The ballad is instrumentally introverted but vocally vibrant. Musgraves’ voice captures the listener and pulls them close, symbolizing arms wrapped tightly around them.
As the song begins, Musgraves humbly sings, “I guess I thought I knew you, but you don't know yourself / My heart was on the table, yours was on the shelf.” This solemn yet straightforward line sets the tone for the rest of the track as a test of how much it takes before one’s heartstrings snap. The opening verse offers tough yet honest advice — someone can’t show you who they are if they don’t know what to show. In fact, a person who claims to love you from a distance may not love you at all. In just the mere beginnings of the track, Musgraves begs the question: If they don’t love themselves, how could they love me?
As Musgraves transitions from the symbolic image of a child struggling to reach for a toy “on the shelf,” she continues, “You promised me a castle, but all you built were walls / I treated you like a king, but even kingdoms fall.” Keeping consistent with the rhyme scheme and themes of the ballad, the singer analogizes a relationship that she thought fell from the heavens, but in reality, all it did was fall.
The chorus chimes, “I couldn't love you into lovin' me / Keepin' me should've been easy, but obviously / It just wasn't easy.” These lyrics subtly showcase her acceptance of defeat. She put the sword down, realizing she was the only one fighting for their love. Accessorized with her southern twang, Musgraves accepts that love is an easy game to lose.
Musgraves brings the title to life, singing, “I gave you water, but I couldn't make you drink / Keepin' me just within reach, always holdin' me / At arm's length.” Mentally, Musgraves was in a loving relationship, filling her partner’s cup. However, the fact is that her lover is gone, draining her cup with each distant pass at love they make. She couldn’t get close to someone pushing her away at “arm’s length.”
“I tried to pull you closer, but you untied the rope / Any chance of closure just went up in smoke,” Musgraves hums. She paints the picture of an invisible string that was never made visible, never becoming more than a figment of her imagination. Closure, a concept those dealing with failed relationships are likely to yearn for, is yet another thing that stays imaginary for Musgraves.
Taking listeners further on the journey of this relationship, she concedes, "You did me a favor, even though it hurt / I guess even my savior complex couldn't make it work.” Musgraves suggests that losing a love that was never true is never a loss. The truest love you can show to yourself is accepting someone for what they were — just someone. Not someone to save, not someone to love or lose, just someone.
Musgraves repeats the chorus, in which she further emphasizes that her efforts were nothing more than water being poured into a bottomless cup — never enough. “I couldn't love you into lovin' me / Keepin' me should've been easy, but obviously / It just wasn't easy / I gave you water, but I couldn't make you drink,” she pleads for the second time in the ballad.
The song comes to a screeching halt for only a moment, symbolizing a relationship hitting its breaking point, after Musgraves sings what is perhaps the most painful verse: “I should have known / That forever was never a hill you could die on.” Reflecting how Musgraves waited for excitement in her relationship, the song anticipates a climactic break as the music swells. She succumbs to a relationship of fighting, but not for one another. Amongst all the hills, the Texas native is the only one who defends her love.
Musgraves ends the track singing the chorus again, extending a hand to the listeners who, like her, were loved at arm’s length.
“Arm’s Length” is a breathtaking ballad on Musgraves’ Deeper into the Well that breaks listeners’ hearts but puts them right back together again. A song of sensitivity and solemnity, relatability and remorse, but most importantly one of acceptance, “Arm’s Length” provides a comforting embrace, contrasting to the distance listeners might've found themselves succumbing to with past loves.