Amanda Shires Holds Nothing Back on Take It Like a Man

Amanda Shires Holds Nothing Back on Take It Like a Man

Plenty of musicians take great pains to create distance between their lyrics and their personal lives. Amanda Shires is not one of them. Each of the 10 songs on her new album, Take It Like a Man, comes directly from her own experience, a point she emphasizes in the press notes for the album. “Everything on the record is autobiographical. I didn’t hold anything back,” Shires said.

That’s tricky enough for someone who lives a fairly public life in her own right. Add in that Shires is married to someone who’s also famous (that would be Jason Isbell), that the bulk of these songs trace the bumpy contours of their marriage and that he plays guitar on seven of them, and you can’t help but wonder if their bond is uncommonly resilient, or whether this year’s family vacation is still on. (If so, the coast of Maine is nice.) Then again, it’s no secret that relationships are complicated, even if you’re not a public figure. Not everyone has the guts to hang all that laundry on the line in full view, but Shires has always had a tendency to say what’s on her mind, however bluntly it may come across.