Kylie Morgan Releases EP Love, Kylie : 'Every Song Is a Letter From Me to the Listener'
Katie Kauss Kylie Morgan
Kylie Morgan is ready to pour her heart out.
Since moving to Nashville at 19, working as a songwriter and putting out single after single of her own, the country singer has been dreaming of the day when she would release her first body of work. Now, that day has finally come.
"I've been dreaming about this EP for a decade," Morgan tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I've had forever to think about what I want to say, how I want to say it and how I want the songs to coincide, and the idea that it's finally coming together is surreal."
The "Break Things" artist released her debut EP Love, Kylie on June 11, consisting of six songs which she says tell the story of her life, with each song acting as a different chapter.
"As a writer, I want to be able to put words to emotions that people don't know how to say," Morgan says. "For instance, I want a song for every single phase in your life, every single feeling that you have that you couldn't put into words."
When it came to titling her first body of work, Morgan says she has had the idea since she first moved to Nashville. She would spend hours sitting at her kitchen table guessing the emails of publishers to send her Spotify link to, and she would sign every email, "Love, Kylie."
Katie Kauss
Eventually, when she got meetings with industry professionals in Nashville, she said that people would feel like they "already knew" her just from the email signature.
"I thought 'Who knew that an email signature could make people feel like they already knew me,'" Morgan says. "But that's when I thought of the idea of naming my EP because truly, every song is a letter from me to the listener. I feel like it's just really one big, giant email of my life and things that I've been going through for the past decade and it's signed, 'Love, Kylie.'"
When releasing the three singles from the EP - "Shoulda," "Break Things" and "I Only Date Cowboys" - Morgan says she wanted to showcase who she is: "a very upbeat person."
Her most recent single, "I Only Date Cowboys," which is a jam that she hopes is reminiscent of Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" that makes every girl sing along.
"I was in a bar on a radio tour, and all of these girls were in the bar doing their own thing, having their own conversations or whatever and then a Lizzo song came on and immediately every single girl stopped what they were doing to sing 'Why are men great til' they gotta be great?" Morgan tells PEOPLE. "I was like, 'I want a song people can do that to' and that's what I want for this song so bad."
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But that side of her personality is balanced out in the track list with three previously unreleased songs.
"This body of work finally gave me a chance to show this other side of me that is more emotional and more human, and just makes mistakes," she says. "For lack of a better word, this side of me has been through some s-."
Third on the tracklist is "Outdoor Voices," which is a song that tells the story of feeling silenced or told to act a certain way by society.
"It's very much just a scream at the top of your lungs moment when it's like, all of this anxiety has been building and people are telling you to be a certain way and you just want to let it all out," she says.
The EP ends with two songs which she says are almost like a prequel and a sequel: "Cheatin' On You" and "Mad I Need You," both of which were inspired by her relationship with country singer Jay Allen.
Katie Kauss Kylie Morgan
"Cheatin' on You," she says is inspired by tough times in her relationship where she and Allen haven't been on the same page and able to connect. She says when people first hear the song, they wonder if it's literal, but it's not. It's meant to be a metaphor of "feeling like you're with someone else even when you're with your person."
"We've been together for six years," Morgan says. "We're bound to have a season where it's not great. You can't have a perfect relationship. We were touring separately for a lot of years and sometimes I would feel a million miles away from him, literally and figuratively."
However, she follows it up with "Mad I Need You," which she says is about realizing that no matter how tough things get, she didn't want to live her life without Allen.
"I'm such an independent person," she says. "I need to make sure that I can do everything by myself and I don't need anybody. Finally, I just woke up one day honestly about six months ago and I realized I can't live without this man next to me. I asked, 'Why do I keep fighting it rather than just accepting it and realizing that it's okay to need somebody?'"
Two weeks before releasing her EP, Morgan attended what she thought was a routine performance between her and Allen at Whiskey Jam in Nashville, but actually ended with Allen down on one knee asking her to marry him.
Hunter Berry Photography Jay Allen and Kylie Morgan
During and after the engagement, she says she "couldn't stop crying for two hours" despite not normally being an emotional person. But now, weeks after the high emotions have worn off, she's able to reflect on what this moment really means as her life comes together both personally and professionally.
"It's definitely a full circle moment - being able to release 'Mad I Need You' around getting engaged and the whole EP coming out," Morgan tells PEOPLE. "There's definitely a lot happening all at once and it's been an absolute whirlwind but I feel like the stars are finally aligning. I feel like I've been trying to break down walls for so many years and the walls are just falling down for me. It's finally all just truly coming together in a way that I feel so confident in."
Love, Kylie is available for streaming now.
