Follow Your Arrow Lyrics
If you save yourself for marriage, you're a bore
If you don't save yourself for marriage, you're a horrible person
If you won't have a drink, then you're a prude
But they'll call you a drunk as soon as you down the first one
If you can't lose the weight, then you're just fat
But if you lose too much, then you're on crack
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't
So, you might as well just do whatever you want
[Chorus]
So make lots of noise (Hey)
Kiss lots of boys (Yeah)
Or kiss lots of girls, if that's somethin' you're into
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, or don't
Just follow your arrow wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow wherever it points
[Verse 2]
If you don't go to church, you'll go to Hell
If you're the first one on the front row, you're a self-righteous son of a
Can't win for losin', you'll just disappoint 'em
Just 'cause you can't beat 'em, don't mean you should join 'em
[Chorus]
So make lots of noise (Hey)
Kiss lots of boys (Yeah)
Or kiss lots of girls, if that's somethin' you're into
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, or don't
Just follow your arrow wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow wherever it points
Say what you think (Say what you think)
Love who you love (Love who you love)
'Cause you just get so many trips around the sun
Yeah, you only, only live once
[Chorus]
So make lots of noise (Hey)
Kiss lots of boys (Yeah)
Or kiss lots of girls, if that's what you're into
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, I would
And follow your arrow wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow wherever it points
About
The third single off of Kacey Musgraves' debut full-length studio album, “Follow Your Arrow” goes through the double standards of life with the inspirational message of doing whatever you want despite what other people say or think.
She had this to say in her Spotify interview:
It’s funny, because, no matter what side of the coin you’re on– gay, straight; left, right; black, white; anything– I mean there’s always going to be opposing opinions … society’s going to have an opinion either way. I mean you’re never going to make society completely happy.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Co-writer Shane McAnally:
It didn’t hit me right away. “‘Follow Your Arrow’ sounds like something from a bumper sticker, not a song. But Kacey has a way when she starts singing something; you’re like ‘OK, that makes sense to me now.”
Musgraves’ label, Mercury Nashville, wanted the song to appear on her second studio album, she declined, and it appeared on her debut:
The record was basically done, and I was getting a lot of pressure because there were already a lot of great songs in the batch. But Brandy, Shane [McAnally] and I had these ideas and they just really encapsulated where my head was at. I knew exactly what I wanted to do sonically, and I said, ‘This isn’t a complete record without them.’”
Shane McAnally on how the label originally felt the song, if sent to country radio, wouldn’t embrace it:
[The label] was like, ‘It’s suicide at radio. Radio will not play this and may never believe you again after.’ And she said, ‘It’s a risk worth taking for me because I just feel like if I don’t put this out, people are going to wonder if I was scared.’"
– Via Billboard (2019)
In 2018, NPR ranked this as the #22 greatest song by a female or nonbinary artist in the 21st century, saying:
Kacey Musgraves established herself as country music’s new-generation statement-maker when she insisted on releasing ‘Follow Your Arrow’ as her third single. It was nothing new for a country artist to sing about what little use she had for middle-class measures of respectability or to espouse a live-and-let-live attitude, but this Texas-bred singer-songwriter offered a fetchingly fresh take on what that sounded like coming from a tradition-savvy and self-aware millennial voice. The lyrics lumped heteronormativity in with other restrictive social mores, including the policing of consumption, piety and sexual availability. Both of Musgraves' co-writers, Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark, happened to be gay, but it was Musgraves who insisted that their whimsical country-pop tune could, and should, articulate queer acceptance. Even more significant than what she wanted to say was how she said it: with an impatient eye roll and a sly, permissive shrug, as though she saw nothing radical about it. Musgraves also co-produced the track with McAnally and Luke Laird, draping her willowy singing — punctuated by shouts of affirmation from male voices and twee whistling — over ribbons of steel guitar and genial acoustic strumming. It was a singular blend of cool affect and cowgirl kitsch.
- 2.My House
- 4.Dandelion
- 6.I Miss You
- 7.Step Off
- 10.Stupid
- 11.Follow Your Arrow
- 12.It Is What It Is