Megan Moroney Breaks Her Silence on Cloud 9, Kasey Musgraves, and That Devastating Wedding Song On The Bobby Bones Show

All Country News
9 hours ago
5 min read

Megan Moroney didn’t mean to start a color-coded era. It just happened somewhere between a pink purse she couldn’t post on Instagram and a heartbreak song that refused to be finished until she healed enough to tell the truth.

Sitting across from Bobby Bones this week, Moroney sounded less like a chart-topping country star barreling toward her biggest album yet and more like a songwriter still marveling at how her own life keeps writing the songs for her. The result is an album called Cloud 9, out February 20, and a conversation that peeled back the curtain on pink aesthetics, viral heartbreak, superstar collaborations, and the long, bumpy road from rental cars to tour buses.

And yes, she really did have to hide all her pink stuff.

The Color of an Era

Moroney laughed when Bones asked if fans might’ve clocked her next musical chapter just by seeing her stock up on pink clothes. Turns out, they absolutely could have. Months before she officially announced the album’s palette, she was quietly collecting pink purses and slippers and resisting the urge to post any of it online.

“My fans are really sneaky and smart,” she admitted.

The color wasn’t a branding brainstorm. It was a byproduct of the writing. Three songs into the album, one track felt “hot pink,” and the image stuck. From there, the rest of Cloud 9 revealed a softer emotional shade than her previous records.

“It’s soft, but also still confident and empowering,” she said. “It just makes sense in my brain.”

It also makes sense in the story arc of her career. Moroney’s early music built a reputation on raw heartbreak and sharp wit. Cloud 9 sounds like the moment when survival gives way to clarity.

“Wedding Dress” and the Long Way Around Healing

The emotional core of the album is a song fans have been waiting years for: “Wedding Dress.” Moroney first teased its chorus and bridge online, where it promptly went viral. But the verses never worked. The song sat unfinished for years, too devastated to be honest and too honest to be finished.

“It was never good enough to put out,” she said. “I couldn’t even make sense.”

The breakthrough came only after she got past the relationship that inspired it. One morning in January, she woke up, opened her Notes app, and rewrote the song as a poem. This time, the verses weren’t written from the middle of the wreckage. They came from the quiet aftermath.

“What would a logical person say if they’re feeling this way?” she asked herself.

That perspective turned a viral fragment into a fully formed gut punch. The song’s most haunting line — “don’t let me miss him in a wedding dress” — finally had verses worthy of its ache.

In a strange twist of songwriting fate, Moroney realized she’d referenced “aisle nine” in the lyrics years before she ever named the album Cloud 9. She still doesn’t have an explanation.

“I swear the songwriting stuff is like a God thing,” she said.

The Weekend That Finished the Album

For all the years-long marinating of “Wedding Dress,” most of Cloud9 came together fast. Almost too fast.

During a single writing weekend, the same one she played Ohio State’s stadium with Jelly Roll, Moroney and her collaborators wrote four songs: “Waiting on the Rain,” “Liars,” “Tigers and Bears,” and “Who Hurt You.”

That was it.

“I was like, ‘The album’s done,’” she recalled. “Let’s drink a margarita.” It was the first time she’d ever felt that kind of certainty. The last song recorded was “Who Hurt You,” and by July the album was mixed, mastered, and sealed.

Kasey, Ed, and Two Bucket-List Miracles

Then came the collaborators.

Moroney calls the Kasey Musgraves feature her “Super Bowl.” Same Trailer Different Park made her want to start writing songs. She once waited outside Musgraves’ tour bus as a fan. Last year, they shared a dressing room at the CMAs.

So when her team asked what would make Cloud 9 better, she took a Hail Mary.

“Bells and whistles would sound really good with Kasey,” she said.

Musgraves not only agreed to sing background vocals, she quietly recorded the entire second verse.

“I cried,” Moroney admitted. “She didn’t change one word. That’s the highest compliment.”

Then there’s Ed Sheeran. The two emailed songs back and forth, politely rejecting each other’s ideas until one finally stuck. The track they landed on isn’t pop-country. It’s traditional country, with Sheeran’s modern voice draped over it.

“He wanted to go the opposite route,” Moroney said. “And I trusted him.”

It’s the kind of collaboration that signals not just crossover appeal, but creative credibility.

The Girl Behind the Songs

Between album revelations, Moroney veered into wonderfully human detours. She confessed she still gets starstruck over Justin Bieber. She admitted she regrets quitting piano lessons as a kid. She revealed her Starbucks order (salted caramel cream cold brew with extra foam) and her favorite lipstick shade (“Endless Cacao”).

She talked about writing “Six Months Later” in the middle of the ocean, about accidental Instagram likes inspiring songs, about wearing an Oura ring onstage to track her stress levels during shows.

And she shared her favorite career souvenir: a guitar signed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, which she plans to use as her new writing guitar.

“If it’s got the Kenny touch and the Dolly touch,” she said, “there’s got to be some sort of magic in that.”

Cloud Nine, Earned

By the time the interview wrapped, it was clear Cloud 9 isn’t just an album title. It’s a snapshot of a moment when things finally clicked: the heartbreak healed into wisdom, the tour bus replaced the rental car, the fan-girl dreams turned into collaborations, and the songs arrived fully formed.

Moroney still sounds amazed by it all. Still grateful. Still a little in disbelief.

Which might be the most on-brand thing of all.

After years of heartbreak anthems and backseat tour naps, Megan Moroney didn’t just land on Cloud Nine.

She climbed there, song by song.

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