Lifestyle
Kacey Musgraves says a past boyfriend helped her become more accepting : Wild Card with Rachel Martin
A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity lately. That word is thrown around so much right now that I’m afraid it’s losing some of its power. But regardless, we all seem to be craving it, right? Real interactions with people. Authentic connections. The rough, messy truth of things. It’s definitely one of the big reasons I started Wild Card, and it’s what I want in my own life. I want it in my relationships, but I also want it in the music, the films and the books I consume, all the things.
Every artist is after authenticity in some way, but the thing I love about Kacey Musgraves is that she just is it. From the beginning of her career, the songs she wrote were just about the life she was living and how she saw the world. She sang about falling in love with fellow country musician Ruston Kelly and getting married to him. And then later on, she sang about falling out of love with him and getting divorced. But she also sings about smoking pot and queer relationships. And she’s the kind of artist who will put a disco song on one of her albums and not give two hoots if you think she’s not country enough, thank you very much.
Musgraves is making her art her way and she’s making it for herself. That other people dig it, that’s some sort of major fringe benefit that has put her at the top of the charts and won her album of the year at the Grammys in 2019 (and it was only the fourth country album to ever get that honor). Musgraves’ latest album is Deeper Well and she’s on tour now.
Kacey Musgraves — “Deeper Well” music video.
YouTube
This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly-selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.
Question 1: What’s something about the place you grew up that you couldn’t wait to leave behind?
Kacey Musgraves: First of all, I’m going to say that I had a wonderful childhood, but I did grow up in a very conservative part of East Texas.
Rachel Martin: Tell me the name of the town.
Musgraves: Golden. It’s really small. There is a post office, but there’s not a school. It’s not big enough for a school. So I think growing up there, it’s different than growing up in a city where there’s, like, a million different viewpoints and there’s a million different religions and a million different cultures and languages. There’s a lack of diversity where I grew up. And I just had this urge to see the world and travel – that’s when I started really understanding that everyone is the same, you know? And I wouldn’t have gotten that if I would have stayed there.
Martin: I get that. I came from a small town in Idaho. I totally felt that too. And I can’t figure out how I knew any different, you know? Because it was just my whole world and my family had been, like, from the same place for five, six generations.
Musgraves: Right.
Martin: Did you have family who lived in other places? Like, how did it come into your imagination that there was a different way to live?
Musgraves: I think it’s just a natural curiosity. And thinking that really anything is possible. And that I don’t have to do it the same way as everyone else.
Question 2: Was there a bedrock truth in your life that you came to find out wasn’t true?
Musgraves: This also gets to where I grew up and preconceived notions about certain things. For instance, the acceptance of people in the queer community was kind of nonexistent where I grew up. I could count on one hand the amount of times I encountered an openly gay person. That’s not to say that I encountered people who weren’t closeted. But, there was a majority view of, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” That kind of mentality.
So I left Texas with this kind of idea that, “Well, people choose to be that way.” And when I moved to Nashville, I started making friends in that community. And I had a boyfriend at the time who did me a huge favor. He was from a completely different upbringing than me, a liberal family in upstate New York. He had a ton of gay friends and he just sat me down one day and we had a real hard and honest conversation about it.
Musgraves performs in Nashville in March.
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA
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Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA
He was like, “Listen, you do not have the right perspective on this.” He just helped me completely open up my eyes and see and I was just like, “Damn, I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to get out of where I came from, and to have my eyes and my heart open to this really wonderful community, and they’ve made me way more well rounded.”
Martin: You talk about queer relationships in your art. I mean, that’s clearly intentional. Do you feel sort of an obligation to use your platform that way?
Musgraves: Well, one of the best compliments that I’ve ever received in terms of my music and who I am in the world is that occasionally people will come up to me and say, “Hey, I grew up in a really small town like you did, and I’ve always loved country music, but I’ve never felt invited to that party.” Honestly, it really wasn’t about ever pushing buttons. It just was me observing what was happening around me and doing my job as a songwriter to put that in the form of a song.
And to me, country music is always about real people, real stories. And why wouldn’t it continue to evolve?
Question 3: Does time feel like a positive or negative force in your life right now?
Musgraves: Honestly, the passage of time is something that like, really f***s me up.
Martin: Really?
Musgraves: Yeah. There’s something so melancholy about it. Just seeing your grandparents get older, your parents get older, relationships changing. Looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles that weren’t there before. It’s really trippy, like how it moves and bends.
I’m just thankful. I’m thankful for it. I’m thankful for the time I have. And I do feel like life keeps getting better as I get older. That’s something that everyone that’s older than you tells you, and you’re like, “Yeah, whatever.” But, I do feel that.
I’m in a period of time where this chapter is not defined by anyone else but me. And I don’t know what’s going to come next. And that’s rare for me. I feel like I’m usually jumping to the next relationship because I love companionship and it’s just been really nice to like, slow down time and enjoy exactly where I’m at. And enjoy the not-knowing of what or who might be next, you know?
Martin: That’s such a lovely answer. Because it’ll come.
Kacey Musgraves’ acceptance speech after winning Album Of The Year at the 2019 GRAMMYs.
YouTube
Musgraves: Yeah, and it’s funny, even in terms of looks, you know, we see pictures of ourselves five years ago and we’re like, “Damn, I wish I would’ve known how great or how in shape I was then. I was so down on myself.”
Rachel: Kacey, we are the youngest we will ever be right now!
Musgraves: Right now! I know. I hate it. I’m just kidding. When I kick off my shows I’m like, “Hey, everybody, we’re existing right now at the same exact time on this crazy planet in the middle of this crazy universe. It’s a miracle that we are here at the same time. And this moment right now, who you’re with tonight, what you’re going through in your life, what I’m going through in my life, is never going to be the same as it is right now. So, let’s just be as present as possible.”
It’s just a nice reminder, like, let’s put our phones down. I mean, you know, take some cute pictures, get the good angles, tag me [laughs]. But let’s be present.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
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Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
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