Mickey Guyton Makes ACM History with "What Are You Gonna Tell Her"

It’s every songwriter’s dream to write something raw and honest, and to have it find its way into the world the way “What are You Gonna Tell Her” has. But it was beyond imagining to see it make history.

The Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards show has been happening annually for 55 years, and never in those 55 years has a Black woman performed an original song as part of the broadcast. This year, the incredible Mickey Guyton became the first. She performed our song as a simple piano-vocal, with Keith Urban backing her up, for the pandemic-emptied seats of the Grand Ole Opry and the CBS TV cameras, broadcasting live to a prime-time audience. Hers was - notably - one of the only live performances of the evening. And it was stunning.

When we wrote the song, I was thinking about my daughters. As Mickey sang it, she put her hand on her own now-pregnant belly, while I sat at home watching from my couch with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes you can’t help but wonder at the full-circle-ness of it all.

The next morning, I woke up to find the internet teeming with posts and media reactions about Mickey’s performance, including this one from Variety Magazine that declared: “It’s one thing to be a ‘woman in country,’ and another to be a female artist writing powerfully and emotionally about women in the country… the whole country. That’s what Mickey Guyton does in ‘What Are You Gonna Tell Her?,’ a stark but soaring ballad that is country music’s song of the year, whether any awards ever acknowledge it as such or not.”

You can watch the performance below. Tim McGraw’s beautiful introduction is not included in the online video, but I will post his words here.

Tim’s intro: “As a son, a husband, and a proud father of three daughters - as a human being - I am enlightened and inspired by women every single day. Their strength changes me for the better, and every opportunity in life should be available to women. This next song speaks to the questions we face while we’re trying to create the change that allows our daughters to be whoever they want to be.”

*****

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