Maren Morris didn’t have to take much creative license when she wrote “Tall Guys,” a tongue-and-cheek, fun celebration of height-gifted men that appears on her latest album, Humble Quest.
That’s because her husband, fellow artist Ryan Hurd, is 6 feet, 3 inches tall -- over a foot taller than Maren.
“I’m 5'1", so I look at everyone like they’re taller than me,” she admits, adding that she always wished to be taller -- but after being married to Ryan, she can see that extra height comes with its own set of challenges.
“I always feel jealous, like, ‘Oh, tall people must love being at festivals and concerts because you can see the stage no matter what,’” she continues. “But Ryan ... is like, ‘No, it’s awful because everyone’s mad at you for standing in front of them.’”
There are also perks to having what Maren calls “a hilarious height difference,” especially in the footwear department. “I can wear my heels as high as they possibly go, and he’s still taller than me,” she points out.
And as fodder for a great song? That’s just the cherry on top. Maren says many of the lyrics of “Tall Guys” were taken straight from her life as the wife of a guy who deals with all the perks and hangups of having extra height.
“My favorite lines of that song are this weird humble-brag of ‘We drink top shelf because he can always reach it / And we fly first class because it’s the only way his knees fit.’ We’re bragging, but we’re also not,” she continues. “We have to just out of pure practicality.”
Overall, she wouldn’t change a thing about the “Tall Guy” in her life: “I love tall guys,” Maren says, “and he’s definitely the tallest guy in my life.”