The Intelligent Design of "The Architect"

I haven't followed Kacey Musgraves's career as closely as I probably should have, though I've liked everything I've heard by her, and recently had occasion to take a cursory tour of her discography, settling on what I think is the consensus pick of Golden Hour as her best overall collection.

The occasion for this tour was the recent release of her newest record, Deeper Well, a fine listen all the way through. I was specifically directed, as I often am by friends who know my predilections, to her lovely meditation on whether there's a God called "The Architect."

As this Sunday is Doubting Thomas Sunday at Greenpoint Reformed Church, where I lead the band, I quickly decided this song would make an ideal sermon response. As I learned its ostensibly simple changes and melody, though, I stumbled on an irresistible bit of musical indirection, a pair of light suspensions or appoggiaturas—exactly the kind of little burrs in the saddle that make the ride more interesting.

The verse melody sits comfortably on the major chords: a C# over the A, a D over the D, a B over the E. Easy peasy:

Then, a few little bumps: She holds on that B over the A chord (a crunchy major second), then holds on the C# over the D (a smudgy major seventh):

She closes the verse by going back squarely to a chordal melody (C# over A, B over E, A over A):

I might not have noticed those tiny snags in the melody at all if I weren't trying to learn to sing it, and it took me a few times through for my ear and brain to catch on. (The trick, of course, is just to hang onto the note from the previous measure, though by now I'm leaning into the crunch and smudge of those chords in the middle.)

These are hardly revolutionary choices, but they make all the difference to me. (I've zeroed in on why I love musical choices like this a number of times before, most memorably here and here.) Though Musgraves never resolves the burning question that animates her song, if God is in the details, that's a kind of answer.