Maren Morris Says Muna, the Professors of Gay, Helped Quell Her Bi-Panic and O

July 2024 · 6 minute read

The sexiest song by far on Maren Morris‘s just-released EP is titled “Push Me Over.” Her collaborators on the tune are the members of the group Muna, whom Maren refers to as “the Professors of Gay” — and that does offer a hint as to what Morris is being pushed over into the lyrics of the song: giving in to the joys of finally dating a woman.

Morris discussed the new tune in an interview with Billboard, where the singer said that her real life was being reflected throughout the songs on the new EP, “Intermission” — both in the more sorrowful songs that deal with her recent divorce and in the far more saucy “Push Me Over,” her first real musical expression of her recently revealed bisexuality.

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After experiencing what she described as “bi-panic,” Morris said that the trio gave her counsel and support in her dating life as they were working on the song.

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“I remember I had been on a date with this girl, and the date went amazing, but I had so many questions for Muna the next day,” Morris said. “I truly felt like a student and I was with, like, the Professors of Gay. They were obviously so supportive, and it made this the easiest song to write. It just puts a pep in my step and I feel like I could have only written it with them.”

The lyrics of the new song include such lines as: “Necklace rests just so, on your collarbone / Makes me want to know / How your perfume smells on me later / Can you take control? Show me where to go / Ain’t been here before / Don’t know what it is, but I like the flavor.” Later, in the chorus, she sings: “Want you in my bed / ‘Cause I don’t need more friends / The more that you come closer / Want you to push me over / Sittin’ on the fence / Feels good bеtween my legs / The more that you comе closer / Want you to push me over.”

Morris went public as bisexual in June when she posted on Instagram from a Pride event and wrote, “Happy to be the B in LGBTQ+. Happy pride.”

In Billboard, Morris admitted she was unsure about whether that was the right way to make that revelation to her fans. ““I think it was one of those things where I thought, ‘Does this really require an Instagram post?’ It didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, this is going to be some big f–king bombshell,’” she said in the interview. “I just think that for any sort of public-facing artist that just, it does feel inclusive to let people know. Also, I get to feel like I’m really not hiding any part of myself any longer. So that makes me sleep better at night.” 

Morris had been outspoken as an LGBTQ+ ally in the past, including appearing at GLAAD events.

It may have been her support of that community that led to a breaking point with the mainstream country music industry. When fellow country star Jason Aldean’s wife, Brittany Aldean, put up an Instagram post making trans youth the butt of a joke, Morris jumped into the fray to denounce her, sparking a headline-making mini-culture war within the country world. Morris subsequently declared that she was pulling back from participating in country music awards shows and events as she determined how to move forward with her career.

Then she announced her separation from her husband, Ryan Hurd (who had been vocally supportive of her stance during the fracas with the Aldeans). Her divorce informs some of the other songs on the new “Intermission” record. “Everything in my life fell apart last year,” she says in the Billboard piece, mentioning that working on the EP songs “was an amazing distraction from the dumpster fire that was my life last fall. I know that a lot of these songs pulled me through it.”

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