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"Merry Go 'Round" is the debut single by American country music artist Kacey Musgraves. It was released in September 2012 as the lead single from her debut album "Same Trailer Different Park". Musgraves co-wrote and co-produced the song with Shane McAnally, with additional writing from Josh Osborne and production assistance from Luke Laird.
"Merry Go 'Round" won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song at the 56th Grammy Awards.
The song is a cynical observation on life in the American heartland. It uses samples of the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" as a continued play-on-words. The latter part of the song retells another traditional nursery rhyme, "Jack and Jill", in a modernized fashion. It is in the key of F-sharp major, in a 2/2 time signature with an approximate tempo of 88 beats per minute. The song's main accompaniment is guitar and banjo.
Giving it 4.5 stars out of 5, Billy Dukes of Taste of Country compared the song's style and Musgraves' voice favorably to Miranda Lambert. It received a "thumbs up" from Juli Thanki of Engine 145, who said that Musgraves "writes with a maturity beyond her 24 years, delivering an unflinching look into small-town life that’s more nuanced than the highly romanticized rural anthems offered up by many of her male counterparts."
It also made "NPR Music's 100 Favorite Songs of 2012" list. It was number 1 on Billboard's "10 Best Country Singles of 2013" list.
Rolling Stone named it the 49th best single of 2012. It was also ranked number 362 in the 2021 revision of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
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