“I wasn’t looking to record but at the same time, there was a moment in my life that was hard, like everybody’s life can be hard sometimes,” Amanda Shires says of the circumstances that ultimately prompted her to enter the studio and record her eloquent and emotionally charged new album, Take It Like a Man. “There was a real disconnect in my marriage and, one day—when it was particularly rough—I sat down with my little ukulele, and I wrote this song ‘Fault Lines.’”

After completing this heartrending expression of sorrow and distance, she shared it with her husband Jason Isbell, with whom she also has long partnered on fiddle and vocals in his band, the 400 Unit.

“I sent it to Jason to hear but he didn’t listen to it,” Shire recalls.

That’s when she passed it along it to her future producer Lawrence Rothman, who had become a recent confidant. The two had met when Rothman reached out with an unsolicited email asking if she would sing on “Thrash the West,” an atmospheric song that explores how Rothman—who uses they/them pronouns—came to terms with their childhood sexual abuse.

“I sent it to Lawrence and said, ‘Here’s a song I made up.’ Then, they called me and said, ‘That’s a beautiful song. It’s very sad, but it’s very beautiful.’ I said, ‘Thank you,’ and they said, ‘We should record it.’ I said, ‘I’m not recording it. I just wanted somebody to hear it.’”

In the early days of COVID, Shires redirected her energies into painting, seeking a more satisfying outlet than she had previously experienced in the recording studio. However, Rothman helped coax her back into that setting, where she had created six prior solo albums, most recently 2018’s To the Sunset. Isbell appeared on guitar for many of the tracks, lending his own estimable skill set and facilitating some measure of catharsis.

Looking back on the composition that set it all in motion, Shires adds, “As I was writing ‘Fault Lines,’ whether or not I recorded it or even played it, I knew that I needed to get my feelings out in some way so that I could have that kind of release. At every step, I try to serve the song in an effort to explain the ball of human emotion and condition to myself.”

You’ve described how you sat down with your ukulele to write “Fault Lines.” I’ve also read that your process often leads you to sprawl out and cover a wall with notes that you’ve been collecting over time. Do you prefer to take a more steady, measured approach or wait for those bolts of creative inspiration?

When I was in school, I learned that waiting for bolts of inspiration is not going to help you when you’re trying to keep your pencil sharp. So I do some kind of writing every day. It all depends on how long the to-do list is.

If I have three minutes, I’ll do three minutes. I always do it right when I wake up. Then, I go into my TM—my Transcendental Meditation— and from there, I’m off to the races.

I have a journal for my daily writings and when the journal is complete, I put the good lines and the images that I like onto index cards. I save those in a little index-card file box and then, when I get ready to write, I hang them up all around me with painter’s tape. So the whole place is full of words. Then, I start drawing lines and connections and themes. During that time, something occasionally will happen where I don’t realize what’s coming on, but suddenly, I’ve written a song.

It sounds like there won’t be any Bob Dylan Museum treatment of your work because when you’re done, you recycle the materials. What led you to that decision?

It’s a fear of misinterpretation along with the idea that, when I’m dead, I don’t want somebody to sell something that I don’t want anyone to read.

While I’m writing, I’ll get interested in how things work or various ideas, so I’ll look up stuff online or in books, then I’ll write those things down. For example, when Brandi [Carlile] and I were writing the song “Highwomen,” I looked up the specifics of how witches weren’t burned, they were hung during that time period. So because I was looking up those things, if somebody sells my journal on eBay for $500, people might misinterpret this as me exploring a part of my own self. Everybody thinks everything’s confessional all the time, so they’re going to think that was about me.

I love to read about people’s processes, but you wouldn’t glean much from my process because it’s a giant tinder box. You’d need ESP to figure out how I get from one thing to another.

So the edits, the deletes and the rewrites don’t feel like they should sit in the world and be pieces of paper when they could be shredded up, composted and used for good.

How important is it for your fans, or even more casual listeners, to understand your backstory when they engage your songs?

If you don’t know anything about my background, you can still enjoy the music. That’s certainly the case. However, I think folks like to find people or artists that they can relate to. I can tell you that I identify with Leonard Cohen. I really love Leonard Cohen and I didn’t know much about him until I became a fan, and then I read everything. I realized that I like him personally and the choices that informed him.

The lines kind of blur now with people knowing more about you on social media. It can become a bit more complicated to separate the art from the artist.

Right now, it’s important to me to know if the artists that I love and support believe the same things as me because I don’t want to support artists that don’t support my rights. My mind could change later about this if the world starts changing—but that’s how I feel right now.

How did you originally connect with the music of Leonard Cohen?

I was working at a record shop in Lubbock, Texas, and I put on Songs of Love and Hate. That was the first record of his that I heard. What happened is the guy I was working with had been playing Fugazi all day and I was like, “Oh, my God, I need to hear something different.” So I just reached for Songs of Love and Hate because I liked the cover. Then, as soon I put it on, I liked the sound of it. So I went back to his very first records and started playing them.

Songs From a Room, with “Bird on the Wire” is the one that really stuck with me for a while. Over the past few years, I haven’t been able to get over You Want It Darker. It’s just so good.

Then, there’s the whole thing where he was a poet and he always liked country music and he had stage fright and finally got over that. I also appreciate the amount of time that he would spend on a song. He was so eloquent and careful when he would speak.

Can you recall the first album that resonated with you in a meaningful way?

I really loved Bob Wills’ The Tiffany Transcriptions, particularly the one with the McKinney Sisters because I liked the way the sisters sounded singing together. Then, in reading more about Bob Wills, I found Cindy Walker and that’s how I kind of fell in love with songwriting.

How did you happen upon Bob Wills in the first place?

I started out playing orchestra music in school and in the youth symphony orchestras that are extracurricular—you could apply for scholarships and grants to be able to afford them. Then, my sixth-grade teacher told me about a private teacher that I should look into because he would let you apply for scholarships and grants to take lessons.

So my mom and I did the work of filling out those papers and I was awarded lessons with this man named Lanny Fiel, who began helping me with my orchestra music. He noticed that I was only good at passages I liked, and thank God I had a good teacher. Sometimes, the best thing about a teacher is that they not only can see what you can do but they can also see where you’re losing interest and try to help.

Lanny played this Bob Wills song “Spanish Two Step” for me. That’s when I realized, “This is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be playing Western swing and taking solos where I learn to improvise.” When I got in the car that afternoon, I told my mom: “I’m a fiddle player now.” She said, “You can be a fiddle player if you also stay in the orchestra.”

At that time, Lanny Fiel was taking songs from the oral tradition and putting them on sheet music. Through him, I met Frankie McWhorter of the Texas Playboys because Lanny was learning these songs that predated Bob Wills. Frankie McWhorter had learned them from Eck Robertson, the first recorded Texas fiddle player in the ‘20s. It was this thing where people passed down information, just learning by ear.

So I met Frankie and on the weekends, I would go sit on his porch and learn songs. Between Frankie and Lanny, I learned the Bob Wills music. Frankie would even give me CDs of things to listen to. That’s kind of how I fell into all of that.

How would you describe the musical connective tissue between the sounds of Bob Wills and the songs that appear on Take It Like a Man?

First off, I don’t want to go any further without saying how much of that old traditional music is melody-driven and phrase-oriented. That’s still really important to me.

The next thing, though, is I’m one of those people who consumes music all the time. I can’t wait for today’s new music Friday. I listen to it with my daughter in the afternoons, as soon as she wakes up from a nap. I get really into it.

At the same time I was doing Bob Wills’ music, I would also listen to pop music. Of the music that I liked at that time, the best happened to be rap and R&B—everything from Destiny’s Child to Method Man and all that.

Before I first picked out a fiddle at the pawn shop, I had heard this rap song with what I thought was a violin. But it turned out that it was actually a synthesizer. So my whole career is based on bad ears. [Laughs.]

I think what ties it all together is songwriters, starting with Cindy Walker and Billy Joe Shaver.

Then, at various times over the years, you get into things as you go. Everybody has a Jackson Browne phase. Everybody has a Bob Dylan phase for life. It all just goes from there.

When Lawrence originally reached out to you, were you familiar with their music?

Not at all. Actually, when their song came across my desk, I was like, “Is this some kind of a lawyer?” [Laughs.]

Then, I listened to the song and I liked the sound of it. So I called them up, and my first mistake was not doing my homework. I “he’d” them all over the place. Lawrence is not a he or him. I learned and apologized. Luckily, they forgave me.

The musical kinship is so strong and the chemistry is real. When we get into the room, we have each other’s backs. They helped me to accept my voice. I don’t have to like my voice, but I can accept it and use it like an instrument, even to the point of trying to conduct my voice as I’m singing.

They helped me a lot with that and still help me with that.

What initially led you to extend your hand and make that personal connection?

John Prine did that for me. I sent stuff to John, he listened to it and liked it, and I got to go open some shows. I got to open twice and then that went well, so John kept inviting me back.

With Lawrence and with most of the things that come across, I listened to them. So when I heard that “Thrash the West” song, the sonic landscape was beautiful. I loved their treatment of the strings. That was something that really got me because I hadn’t been around folks who could record violin or fiddle very well. You do hear it in old records, like hot jazz, but when you hear it now, it kind of sounds mosquito-y.

So I was drawn to the fact that they could record that so well. Then, I liked the subject matter. So when they asked me to sing, I was like, “OK, I’ll give it a whirl.”

In a later conversation talking about those harmony parts, we started talking about different parts of our childhood. Then, over text, we wrote a song.

There’s something about soul connections—being able to get past the surface or not even broaching the surface and just being humans on the level of “Let’s forget the protocols here”—where you can talk about anything with each other, if you trust one another. For some reason, it worked, and that’s how it started.

You mentioned that after you sent “Fault Lines” to Lawrence, you indicated that you had no interest in recording it. What led you to change your mind?

They did it like they always do, with inception. [Laughs.] They say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.” Then, I was working on this other song just for fun. I sent that one along and they said, “We should record it.” I said, “No, I just want somebody to know I’m making up some songs just for fun, not with any goal in mind.” Then they said, “Why don’t we just do a trial day since you don’t wanna do it so much and you think this is going be the same experience you’ve had in the studio.” So I was like, “OK, trial day it is.” Then, they flew from London from whatever project they were on like 10 days too early. They texted me and said, “I’m in town, if you want to get coffee and whatever.” Well, I said, “A, this is COVID. B, we already have a trial day—see you then.”

What was it about the trial day that felt different to you from your prior studio experience?

It all began with patience. When we first got into the studio, I did not feel like I wanted to play any songs in front of people. So when they started getting their guitar out, trying to signal me that we’re going to record a song, I said, “This isn’t happening right now. It probably will be another four hours before I’m ready to even open the damn box of this ukulele or fiddle or whatever I’m doing.”

So it was patience. They were so patient like, “OK, if you need to just sit in a room and make jokes with your friends for four hours, that’s cool.” And even when we finally started, I had to get under the piano because I did not want to be seen. I couldn’t comfortably sit in a room and play my song for the first time without anxiety.

So we count off and play “Fault Lines” with Jason joining in. I thought it went pretty good, and Jason said to me: “That’s a really good song.” I responded, “Thank you. Glad you’re listening. Is that all you have to say?”

That was the first time that Jason had heard the song?

That’s right. He didn’t listen to it when I sent it to him because he was in his own world protecting his own mental health and state in COVID. At that point, we still hadn’t gone through the recording experience and all the kind of stuff that came along with his Reunions record. So there was stuff that needed to be worked out. We probably would have reached some kind of ground earlier, but with COVID and everything that came with that, the goal for each of us was to protect ourselves and make it through.

By the end of that trial day, were you committed to make a record?

Well, another couple of hours went by and I decided to give another one a try. It was “Stupid Love,” and that didn’t go as well but we broke for lunch. Then after lunch, the vibe still felt good and patient and cool. So I was like, “Let’s see how the rest of this day goes.” The other one we recorded was “Don’t Be Alarmed.”

After that, I said, “We should record some more.” I still had no goal in mind. I wasn’t trying to think past just getting into the studio and being comfortable in it. In my mind, I wasn’t making a record. I was just recording songs. But that’s how it all slowly came together.

Lawrence also produced your Christmas record. At what point in this timeline did you work on that?

I was writing and working on Take It Like a Man but I wasn’t done with it yet. I had written the Christmas songs and that production was easier to complete as a collection because it was a statement on what Christmas meant to me, which is not always a positive sentiment. I wanted to share those songs because I suspected that some other people might feel that way too. I always hope that folks are able to find themselves in the songs. The losses of John Prine and Billy Joe Shaver are also in there because I was thinking about how Christmas is going to be very different from here on out. So that album was ready first and it helped me not feel bad about not being done with Take It Like a Man.

What sort of feedback did you receive relative to that record and did it surprise you?

I discovered that a lot of folks could identify with some of those feelings about Christmas that you’re not supposed to say out loud. Christmas doesn’t look the same for everybody. Some people are not experiencing this idea that Christmas time is always happy and whatnot.

I also wanted to offer people something else that they could listen to during Christmas. There are only a few records that I can hear over and over that I don’t get tired of, like A Charlie Brown Christmas. So I feel proud to have offered what I hope can be an alternative listening experience. [Laughs.]

Take It Like a Man concludes with the song “Everything Has Its Time,” which features the chorus “For worse or for better, nothing lasts forever/ Everything has its time.” In terms of the album sequencing, what led you to go out with that sentiment?

It’s circular. So in considering the sequence, I thought about how I listen to records. With this particular one, it’s like time moving in a circle and not linearly. It’s the ups and downs. Then, when you get to the tenth song, you’re expected to flip it back over and continue.

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Amanda Shires is currently on tour in support of Take It Like A Man.