The title track tells another story of a cooled relationship. But that’s because you think, ‘I know how this person feels.’ That’s a fun way to write a song, because you jump outside yourself for a minute.” You usually sing in first person, because it’s more effective that way. You don’t want to be a character of yourself. “Songs have to be exaggerated and dramatic.

“It would be hard for anybody to live all their lyrics - they’d be hard to be around,” she says, not exactly denouncing authenticity in country music but rather touting a songwriter’s poetic license. Instead, they’re cinematic tales about the often tortured lives of fictional women. But then McKenna catches herself, admitting very few of the album’s songs are her story. “That wasn’t my experience!” the married mother of five insists with a laugh, explaining why she didn’t include her own version of “Girl Crush” on her new album, The Bird and the Rifle. It’s about a woman so crazy about a man that she becomes obsessed with the other woman who’s actually with him - and wants to transform into her. Take “Girl Crush,” for instance - the Grammy-winning, chart-topping Little Big Town tune McKenna penned with Liz Rose and Hillary Lindsey. The lauded country songwriter can get inside the minds of characters with whom she has pretty much nothing in common and not only tell their stories but also psychoanalyze them in three-and-a-half minutes.

Lori McKenna would make a great psychiatrist.

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