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In August of 2020, after 20-plus years of belting her lungs out onstage in more bands than she can keep track of, Austin singer-songwriter Cari Hutson laid down what may be the best vocal track of her career to date in the closet of her master bedroom. The song was “Blame,” co-written with her husband Hunter St. Marie and recorded soup-to-nuts in their home during quarantine lockdown. Her husband, the lead guitarist in her band Good Company, played every instrument on the track save for some keys added remotely by bandmate Bryce Powell, then set immediately to work planning and editing together a video with Hutson while the song was sent off for mastering. They were racing the clock, hellbent to have both the song and video out before the Nov. 3 election — even if only by a matter of days.

“It started from a conversation Hunter and I were having when we took a trip out to Galveston to visit his parents, to let our daughter be with her grandparents,” says Hutson. “We were talking about the state of the world and how we felt as parents ourselves, knowing what our daughter’s going to be growing up in, and Hunter kind of mumbled something to himself about ‘blame, blame, blame’ — as in our president constantly pushing blame and never owning up to any wrong doing. Then Hunter got a call from a friend, but I opened up my notes on my phone to put some thoughts down and the song just took off ... like it wrote itself.

“It all came from ... I was just angry, you know?” she continues. “I was angry at the state of the world, and politics in general, but most of all angry at my feeling a lack of being able to control anything, because I’m a mom and I’m a woman who deserves to live in a world where I matter. So it was a song that I just had to write and that I wanted as many people as possible to hear as soon as possible. Not because I think I’m going to change anybody’s mind, but because I I really needed to get it off my chest. And I also know that I’m probably going to piss some people off, but ... I’m really ok with that.”