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Yes, Kacey Musgraves Really Did Sleep “In A Room With The Ghost Of Gram Parsons”
It’s all true.
As I’ve said time and again, Kacey Musgraves’ sophomore album Pageant Material remains criminally underrated. It’s a masterpiece, a true work of art, and “Dime Store Cowgirl” is easily one of my favorite songs on the completely stacked tracklist.
One line in particular has always stood out to me, as she declares in the second verse where she declares:
“Slept in a room with the ghost of Gram Parsons
Drank some wine I can’t afford
Went to San Antonio to the Riverwalk and the rodeo
Seen the white cliffs of Dover from the shore”
And it was directly inspired by her stay at the infamous Joshua Tree Motel in the California desert, where Kacey stayed before and had quite the paranormal experience. With Halloween coming up soon and fall in full force, which is my favorite time of year, I thought it would be the perfect time to revisit this spooky story.
The Joshua Tree Motel is located in a pretty rural, desolate area popular with artists, hikers, and musicians, and it’s also the place where alt-country legend Gram Parsons overdosed on a combination of morphine and alcohol in a hotel room there in 1973, after purchasing the substance from an unknown young woman.
She injected him in room #1, and he overdosed. After trying several different things, like going to buy coffee to help revive him (yeah, different times…) and his significant other, Margaret Fisher, trying resuscitation, they eventually decided to call an ambulance.
Parsons was declared dead on arrival later that night at Yucca Valley Hospital at 12:15 a.m. on September 19th, 1973, and his personal wish was that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread over Cap Rock at Joshua Tree.
His stepfather Bob organized a private ceremony back in New Orleans, though, and didn’t invite his friends from the music industry, with multiple reports stating he stood to inherit Gram’s share of his grandfather’s estate if he could prove that Gram was a resident of Louisiana. In a wild turn of events, two of Parson’s friends stole his body from Los Angeles International Airport in a borrowed hearse, and attempted to cremate his body themselves by pouring five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and throwing a lit match inside.
It resulted in an enormous fireball, and of course, they were arrested several days later, though because there was actually no law against stealing a dead body, they were only fined $750. Truly an insane story… but again, these were very different times.
Eventually, what remained of Parson’s body was buried in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie, Louisiana. Since then, visitors of the park have reported countless instances of paranormal activity in room #8, where he passed away.
And one of those people is Kacey, who explained what happened in an interview with Exclaim! years ago. Of course, her aforementioned song sparked interest among fans as to whether or not she just made that up as funny lines, or if there was some truth behind it.
She had previously stayed at the Joshua Tree Motel with her crew while filming the music video for “Follow Your Arrow,” which was included on her debut 2013 album Same Trailer Different Park, and she fell in love with it, so she went back later because she loved the “vibe.”
She says a painting that had been hanging on the wall, which was frameless and pretty lightweight, moved on its own to be propped up next to the couch all by itself:
“Recently we had a day off, and so we all stayed at that motel again. It’s just the coolest place. It definitely has this vibe, you know? Some kind of mojo going on. Well, in our room there was a painting that had been real high up, kind of close to the ceiling for some reason, just a lightweight canvas painting. There wasn’t a frame or anything. And I came into the room, and it was off the wall.”
Kacey swears no one had been in her room or anything else could’ve happened that caused it to fall or move, and she had a pretty fair response, saying “what the f***,” and adding that she wanted Gram to get out, fairly certain it was him:
“It was sitting down. Propped up by the couch. And no one had been in my room! I was just like, ‘what the f******?’ Stuff like that, you know? It’s like: okay Gram, get out of here!”
Now I’m not here to dispute her story which she clearly experienced by herself, and who knows if it was the ghost of Gram Parsons or not, but it’s still a fascinating story and I will also take any opportunity to share the songs from Pageant Material.
While that line certainly has a wild story behind it, the song itself has a much lighter message, as Kacey told The Fader many years ago.
She explained that it’s really about staying true to herself and staying grounded as that girl from Golden, Texas, in spite of all the incredible things she’s done throughout her career, like singing with Willie Nelson:
“It’s just little references of things that really happened over the last couple of years. I love that the first line is, ‘I’ve had my picture made with Willie Nelson,’ and now I’m singing with him.
I remember when it was a really big deal that we stayed in a fancy hotel with a pool. We shot the ‘Arrow’ video in Joshua Tree, at the hotel where Gram Parsons died, the Joshua Tree Inn. He died in room number eight. It has a cool vibe about it.
There’s that and talking about a Palm Springs trailer park, where we shot the photo for the first album art… The overall message is, ‘It doesn’t matter. All this cool s*** that I get to do, but I’m still from Golden.'”
It’s even more fun to listen to knowing how authentic the song was to Kacey’s life at the time, and yes, she really did sleep “in a room with the ghost of Gram Parsons…”
“Dime Store Cowgirl”
The post Yes, Kacey Musgraves Really Did Sleep “In A Room With The Ghost Of Gram Parsons” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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