A Georgia Girl In Cambridge: The Sad Girl Genius of Megan Moroney
A Thursday night in Cambridge, a city known for its history, its academics, its punting, and having an excessive number of bicycles – it’s very British. But on the twelfth of September, it got a little bit country when Georgia Girl Megan Moroney came to town.
Playing at Cambridge Junction, the emo cowgirl put on a Hell of a Show for a sold-out crowd of 850. The audience of country fans that night consisted of a mix of girls ready to sing the lyrics they’ve been relating to since Moroney’s first release, groups of strangely-stereotypically-American looking guys in trucker hats, and a few older people that looked more likely to be at the Little Big Town gig that was happening across the city on the same night – but I guess there’s a crossover there. Whatever that crowd looked like, everyone was there to hear some good music, and Moroney and her band of emo cowboys made that happen.
Starting the show with her honkytonk hit Lucky, it was immediately evident that this country star can put on a show wherever she is and whoever is watching. Making her way through a setlist of songs from her mainstream debut Lucky, (Rolling Stone’s 2023 Country and Americana Album of the Year if you needed reminding) the new album, Am I Okay?, and a couple of older songs that had started her success, it was one glittery night.
Moroney can sing, perform and charmingly captivate the attention of an audience, but one of her greatest skills by far is her songwriting – reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves’ wit, with Taylor Swift’s storytelling. Moroney is a phenomenal example of what happens when a girl grows up listening to every word the women that came before her wrote, brings those stories into her own world, and uses that influence to shape her own emotional outpourings.
Perhaps it’s a result of Taylor Swift’s knockout tours of recent years that dressing on theme for a gig is becoming increasingly common, not all of us here in the UK will wear cowboy boots to do their food shopping, but wearing them for a Megan Moroney concert? Everyone’s up for that. Even a couple of dads accompanying their daughters had got their cowboy hats out. Recently, the phenomenon of live music seems to have taken a bit of a turn, it’s more of an experience than it used to be. It’s getting drinks with friends before you go and walking to the venue in an outfit that makes it obvious where you’re going and just how much of a place that music has in your life. It’s a few hours to lose yourself and know that in that moment, the people around you care as much as you do. There’s a distinct joy present in live music that offers a kind of safe space for young women to scream the lyrics that say everything they’ve been wanting to let out – and a writer like Moroney has plenty of those lyrics.
The personal heartbreak in tracks like No Caller ID or 28th of June became instantly shared. Suddenly everyone had a man they’d like ‘a hundred thousand miles from here’ when Moroney performed the exceptionally well-written Man On The Moon. The country-barbie-force-to-be-reckoned-with was shamelessly aware of the implications of writing a song about a guy who she spoke to for two weeks, and naming that song Noah. She wasn’t hesitant to tell that story, she knew her audience would understand. A song laced with pain and self-doubt like Girl In The Mirror hits a little closer to home when you’re surrounded by young women who have probably had a couple of rough patches when they’ve ‘gotten too used to crying all the time’. But that’s what music’s there for, to remind us that ‘you can’t love the boy more than the girl in the mirror’, and Moroney seemed to be reminding her audience of wide-eyed girls in hats and glitter of that sentiment all evening.
Musically and sonically, perhaps another reason for Moroney’s popularity and all-round appeal is her reluctance to remain solidly in one genre. Her sound blends traditional country with a pop sensibility and some surprisingly heavy rock elements, occasionally living up to the ‘emo’ part in her emo-cowgirl persona too. The hour and a half setlist on her Georgia Girl tour really offered an opportunity to showcase this variety. Even a small band made it work with an abundance of slide guitar, a very tight drummer, and a willingness to take a step back and listen to an acoustic number from Moroney when they’ve probably heard these songs hundreds of times before.
Highlights of the show probably included the switch-up to that rockier sound on Indifferent, the return to her small-town roots on early career favourite Hair Salon, the sass of Sleep On My Side, and an all too short Georgia On My Mind intro to Georgia Girl.
As the lights changed to a warm orange, Moroney flawlessly performed her biggest hit Tennessee Orange, her characteristic rasp was as present live as it is on the studio recording. After some scathing and heartbreaking songs, closing with an undeniably sweet love song made for a slightly needed moment of lightness. For a song that was (and still is) relentlessly played on country radio, it still feels original. If this is the biggest and best song Moroney ever writes, it’s a good one, it’s one for the ages and the love stories, and it was unsurprisingly one of the best moments of the night.
After an encore performance of title track Am I Okay? it’s pretty evident that Megan Moroney is more than okay as she left the stage smiling, waving and dancing. She’s one of the brightest, glitteriest, most talented voices in country at the minute and we won’t be forgetting this Georgia Girl anytime soon.
