Maybe We'll Make It: A Memoir

American Music Series

by Margo Price

When Margo Price was nineteen years old, she dropped out of college and moved to Nashville to become a musician. She busked on the street, played open mics, and even threw out her TV so that she would do nothing but write songs. She met Jeremy Ivey, a fellow musician who would become her closest collaborator and her husband. But after working on their craft for more than a decade, Price and Ivey had no label, no band, and plenty of heartache.

Maybe We’ll Make It is a memoir of loss, motherhood, and the search for artistic freedom in the midst of the agony experienced by so many aspiring musicians: bad gigs and long tours, rejection and sexual harassment, too much drinking and barely enough money to live on. Price, though, refused to break, and turned her lowest moments into the classic country songs that eventually comprised the debut album that launched her career. In the authentic voice hailed by Pitchfork for tackling "Steinbeck-sized issues with no-bullshit humility," Price shares the stories that became songs, and the small acts of love and camaraderie it takes to survive in a music industry that is often unkind to women. Now a Grammy-nominated “Best New Artist,” Price tells a love story of music, collaboration, and the struggle to build a career while trying to maintain her singular voice and style.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Biography, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 2022

About the author

Margo Price is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. She has released three LPs, earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, and performed on Saturday Night Live, and is the first female musician to sit on the board of Farm Aid.

Reviews

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir about how long it took and how much hard work Margo Price put in to be an overnight sensation. The first two thirds of the book are the familiar tales of a hapless twentysomething drinking too much, being poor and in love, etc. Frankly, it was a little boring. However, the last third of the book rewards the reader for putting up with the boring stuff.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this as an audiobook galley from NetGalley.

Normally I would have read this (as I do with most memoirs) but for this memoir I enjoyed listening to it much more. When Margo was talking about specific songs the intro/outros to the chapters would include snippets of the songs- some that were early songs or unreleased songs that I had never heard before!

It made for a very well-rounded listen to Margo’s long hard road to the top of the country music heap where she belongs.

[Gary Anderson]

If you like Americana music, well, Margo Price’s memoir Maybe We’ll Make It is the book version. Full of hollering, heists, heartbreak, and haze, Price’s story is an honest, reflective, piercing look at what it takes to live an artistic life in America these days. I’m trying to get a better handle on the evolving place held by women in country music, and Margo Price’s approach to the industry reveals a lot about how the path is made much more difficult when a woman refuses to compromise. I sure hope more Margo Price books will follow Maybe We’ll Make It. If you don’t know Margo Price yet, you can start with this “Saturday Night Live” appearance, which is close to where the books ends.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a bit to get through this memoir, listened to it as a did my morning walks.

I love Margo Price's music, had the pleasure of seeing her open for John Prine several years ago & I think she & her husband are great musicians.

Her rise to fame was slow, difficult & sometimes unfair in the big picture. But parts of this book made me want to give her a shake. Some, not all, of her struggles were self imposed- but she lived the life she wanted & worked & worked until her "big break". There was sadness & tragedy, not of her doing & my heart broke for her & her husband.

In the end I feel she finally matured, took her issues by the head & worked for a better life for her family & her career. I loved her voice telling her story.

[Kerry Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

⁣“Tears poured down my face. It felt like such a relief to say it all and to get the weight off of my chest. I stopped and looked down at the words on the page, ‘Now there’s a fucking song,’ I said aloud.”⁣
⁣
I remember when I first heard Margo Price’s 2016 debut record, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. I was immediately hooked by her vintage country sound, like a modern Loretta Lynn, and her raw, storytelling lyrics. Her songs were about hard living and at the time I wondered how much of them were autobiographical. Now I know: all of them. ⁣
⁣
Margo doesn’t shy away from telling about the highs and lows of her journey to make it in Nashville. She’s as honest here as she is in her songs. She tells her story, her beginnings, her music, her marriage, her drinking, her motherhood, her tragedy, her grief, her pain and paints pictures for us in words. ⁣
⁣
She really gets at the heart of how difficult it is for a woman in the Nashville music industry. But she is clever and she finds many ways to beat the patriarchy. And she takes no shit. It’s glorious. ⁣
⁣
I’m glad I listened to the audio because Margo reads her own story and interspersed throughout are the songs that illustrate her life. Hearing her talk about writing a song with her husband and musical partner, Jeremy Ivey, then hearing them sing it, is a bonus of the audio that can’t be overstated. This is the best way to experience her book. Then go listen to all her albums. ⁣

[Joan Padgitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sister taught with Margo's mother Candace Price. I live in Denver and remember my sister telling me about Candace's daughter who was busking on Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. I would hear tidbits about Margo life in Nashville from my sister who heard them from her Mom.
One day I saw an advertisement for Late Night with Stephen Colbert saying his musical guest was Margo Price. I called my sister to confirm if this Margo was one and the same! This appearance was closely followed by SNL and I've been kicking myself for not following Margo's tours more closely as it is now difficult to nab a ticket for her concerts.
Her memoir had me spell-bound as I also grew-up in the Midwest, attended NIU in Dekalb, IL, moved to Boulder for a job, been to the Millsite Inn in Ward...unfortunately did not see Margo play or meet the barefooted mountain man!
Her brutally honest memoir tells you the kind of person she is...her story was a wild ride. I'm going to go out on a limb and proclaim that she has "made it". The word 'tenacious' kept creeping in as I read her words.
I highly recommend this read.

[Kat Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first encountered Margo Price's music when she was featured on Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. I was impressed by her music, of course, but also found her life story to be fascinating: her struggles with substance abuse, her country album every label had flatly rejected until Third Man Records, the death of her infant son, etc.

Since then, Price's profile has only increased, and I was entirely unsurprised when she announced that she was writing a book. Over-all, this was a definite page turner, and it was satisfyingly written at the line level. Anyone familiar with Price's work knows she's a good storyteller. I did think this suffered from some pacing issues--we spend relatively little time in childhood and adolescence (although Price spells out that there are certain things she simply won't write about to preserve her family's privacy and their relationships to her, so that's probably why).

The bulk of the book is devoted to the years when Price and her husband, Jeremy Ivey, were struggling to find their place in the scene. While this is essential to her story and demonstrates their grit and determination, it became somewhat repetitive. I guess I just wished that we'd spent more time in her early years and then lingered a bit longer in the more recent past . . . perhaps she has another book in the works that will deal more directly with this timespan? Or at least I hope so. I was a little disappointed that on page 200 we have the birth of Price's children/death of her son, and then 65 pages later, the book is over. The pacing just felt off and like things wrapped up too soon. Another thing . . . she writes about her marriage being on the brink of divorce but doesn't really describe how they healed their relationship; given how much she shares about their relationship elsewhere, it was a bit surprising.

But I did enjoy reading this, and you wouldn't necessarily have to be a massive fan of her work to appreciate the story.

[Megan Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible memoir by the hardest working musician I know. She overcomes adversity and finds ways into an industry that is full of roadblocks. Margo shares her vulnerability and honestly befriends the reader through her ups and downs. Her sharing of the story of the birth of her twins and subsequent death of Ezra is compelling and honestly written. She is a total inspiration.

[Tonyia Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

Self indulgent. Details about the brand of whiskey she drank, the names of everyone in the band at that particular time (including what they were wearing), but never mentions what arrangements she made to care for her beloved child while she's on tour.

I felt the book needed an editor but I see that she has credited her "brilliant editor". So many details that don't match up - within the same two page spread. It's disorienting.

The book feels like a self-published running stream of thought. I see reviews from those who did the audio book and they love it. That would probably be better? To hear Margo herself telling the story. It would feel more like a conversation. Reading it in print was not enjoyable. I kept wondering why I was still reading it.

[Affie Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Booze, drugs, getting high, being stoned, taking a bump. Hard to listen to her self destruction throughout most of this book. I thought this autobiography would make me like MP more…it had the opposite effect.

[Mark Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got nothing to prove, I got nothing to sell
I’m not buying what you’ve got, I ain’t ringing no bells
I got a mint in my pocket, got a bullet in my teeth
I’m going straight in the fire, I’m gonna talk to the high priest

Those are the opening lyrics to “Been To The Mountain” off Margo Price’s new album, Strays. It’s a feisty track, loaded with attitude. The whole album is terrific. It features a variety of styles, but it’s never not interesting. It’s not pure country—at all. There’s a touch of rock, a few flashes of psychedelic guitar, and edge in abundance.

“Light Me Up,” with Mike Campbell on guitar, is a multi-layered epic. “Radio,” featuring Sharon Van Etten, starts out with a pulsing electronic heartbeat. “Lydia” is six minutes of contemplative reflection. More than anything, Strays is personal.

What makes for a great songwriter? What goes into great songwriting?

Maybe We’ll Make It, Price’s memoir, gives us a glimpse. At least, it gives us the blow-by-blow of a long hard slog. It’s a portrait in determination. And who among us Coloradoans knew that in 2006, after raising $2,500 in a yard sale in Nashville to finance a cross-country sojourn, that Margo Price and her boyfriend Jeremy Ivey drove to Boulder and busked on the Pearl Street mall? They camped in a secluded spot near Grand Lake, two-and-a-half-hours away, and made treks to Boulder to play on the street.

“We opened our cases, got our guitars out, and began to play. We played originals, but usually covers got better tips because people recognized the melodies. We worked up ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ and ‘Oh Sister’ by Bob Dylan and peppered in some Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles, Joni Mitchell. We cased people as they walked by and played what we thought they might want to hear.”

Busking became their gig. “Once we had enough money for dinner and a bottle of cheap wine, we packed up, filled our bellies, and went about the business of getting drunk.”

Booze, shrooms, joints, whiskey are ever-present in Maybe We’ll Make It. Price celebrated hard, commiserated harder. She leaves no detail out here. (Of course, I don’t know that. But let’s hope she didn’t tone it down to protect us.) She’s plenty blunt about her consumption and, for the record, I might be able to keep up for the first quarter-hour. Today, Margo is now two years sober.

But the real thirst she’s got is for music and all that’s come before here. Price cobbled together various bands over the years, including one called Buffalo Clover that attempted a number of self-financed tours in rickety vehicles, depended on kindnesses from fellow musicians or the occasional handout of a garbage bag full of day-old bagels that the band nibbled on for a week. A guitar is always ready at hand for either Margo or Jeremy to start plucking, playing, and writing.

The most harrowing chapters in Maybe We’ll Make It cover the loss of one of her two twin sons shortly after childbirth. Son Ezra was diagnosed with a heart defect prior to being born. The post-birth surgery was unsuccessful. The weight of this loss is heavy and Price walks us through the “fog of grief” including recurring nightmares. These chapters are harrowing. The tragedy, as one would expect, lingers hard.

Despite being “naïve and disorganized,” Price leads Buffalo Clover to England for one tour and then another. But nothing changes. It’s always back to the same old Nashville scenes and clubs. Price writes about betraying her marriage and the band scraping along. “I was living a full-blown lie, and I never reached out to tell anyone I was drowning.”

But, songwriting. Always writing songs. That’s the one constant. Price puts together an outfit called “Margo and The Price Tags.” She plays a gig at The Basement in Nashville and it’s strong enough that legendary Kenny Vaughan (another Denver connection, for those who remember Leroy X) told Price that she had “it.” Yes, “it.” The elusive “it.” Vaughan told her she had to keeping singing “because it would eventually pay off.” How did Vaughan know? What did he sense?

It’s notable that Price doesn’t say “here’s the magic formula.” She’s got no step-by-step formula for climbing up to the next level, of getting a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.

For every step up, Margo Price heads out on tours that run, apparently, on fumes. And, finally, a break. A two-record deal with Third Man Records and suddenly a spot on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, an NPR party at SXSW in Austin, and then a big-spotlight gig on Saturday Night Live. Still, anxiety. Still, dealing with self-image and self-doubt. And still dealing with the negative industry messages and naysayers who don’t believe. Maybe We’ll Make It offers plenty of proof that all any songwriter can do is just keep writing, playing, and writing some more. And get to a point where you can confidently say that you got nothing to prove. You’ve seen it all, done it all, and you know you’re good.

[Samantha Rovik · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my friend’s birthday, I purchased tickets for Margo’s book talk at the end of this month. Thanks to Net Galley, I didn’t have to wait to pick up my copy of the book and I got access to her audiobook.

I’ve been a fan of Margo for awhile. As she puts it, she writes sad ass songs with heavy grooves and that speaks to my soul on another level. I knew her book would do the same.

Margo is a life force. She had every setback an artist can have and more, but her determination never wavered. Life was not easy for her, but she’s not bitter about it and she doesn’t blame others for it. She’s honest that more often than not it was because of her own doing. She’s flawed and she’s wild. she is a testament to why it’s important to believe in yourself and love yourself despite your shortcomings. There is no one else like her.

My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t twice as long. Margo gave us a lot, but I know there’s a lot more left to tell.

[Shai · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a compelling story. Price's commitment to making it as a singer/songwriter is really impressive. She narrates the book well and is a likable compelling person. Even though, by the end, she has completely gone off of alcohol, I'm not totally convinced that her days with substance abuse are over given her unabashed enthusiasm for pot.

After years of reckless behavior and all manor of lawbreaking, Price actually spends two nights in a cell after destroying her car while drunk. It would have been nice if she had commented that a black women behaving the same way as she did would likely have been behind bars for years if she had behaved the way Price did.

In the end, I was impressed by her tenacity, writing song after song after song, holding out to be herself and not sell out to people who wanted to use her to be something they wanted. I've started listening to her music as well and I like a lot of it.

[Elise Gaffney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned of Margo on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show, I’m sure I was doing the thing I always did which was making a large gin drink while caring for someone else’s babies and I heard her voice and her story and felt her sorrow and her connection with Anthony (my love for him is…troubling, perhaps) and her lyrics have brought me to tears every time I hear her sing about loss and heartache but the line that I think about on nearly a daily basis is “turn back the clock on the cruel hands of time” and what the fuck happened in years 34 to 35 because it’s just like time passing is different now and it is almost always making me emotional. This book made me cry a lot and I thought she’d mention Anthony and she didn’t but that’s okay. I love her.

[Emily Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, read this book because I’m going to see Margo play for the first time soon and didn’t realize just how little I knew about her or how damn long it took for her to finally “make it” and even then still had struggles. Is also appreciated that she wrote the book herself, rather than with a ghostwriter.

[Dani]

I always feel weird about the idea of rating memoirs, so I don’t. What I will say is that I did appreciate her tenacity, and I wish that she had not rushed through the years between 2015-2022 so quickly. Also, TW: infant death. I do wish I had known about that going in, because that part fucked me up.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I had finished this I’m pretty sure I would have not been able to even listen to her music anymore. She’s basically acting feral throughout the first half of the book and honestly, once she let the dog out and it was killed due to her lack of attention, I was DONE.

[jess w · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly well-written memoir, reminiscent of Just Kids. I already loved Margo and now I love her even more 💜

[Betsy Schlehuber · Rating 4 out of 5]

i want to live off the grid in colorado now

[Olivia T · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little too long in the parts it didn’t need to be, the little too short in the parts it did.

[Elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

The singer-songwriter’s determination to make it after 10 years of poverty in Nashville is inspirational. Going to be seeing her this summer opening for Tedeschi Trucks Band so I figured I’d check in and see what she is all about.

[Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to a lot of this at the pottery studio and had tears streaming off my cheeks into my clay lol — beautiful writing and storytelling. Read it for my pops, who loves her music.

[Jim Byrne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don’t know Margo, you don’t know shit.

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

With writing sharp and poetic and bitter, Margo Price tells her story from growing up in Illinois to traveling the country with a love for music keeping her going dealing with addictions, heartbreaks, and hopelessness. I loved this story, because even knowing how it ends, was finding myself praying for Margo and her band to get their big break. Re-listening to Midwest Farmer's Daughter as an extension of this memoir is necessary listening.

[Juanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me love her music even more. I loved the audio version of this book with her songs woven throughout.

[Ted Zarek · Rating 4 out of 5]

In what is mostly a pretty straightforward memoir, Price shows off her writing chops with her amazing imagery and sense of voice. By the end of the book, I was reading (in my head) in a Tennessee accent, and often in Price’s own voice as I’ve heard it in her performances.

There were moments when I couldn’t help but laugh at the events that happened and how she relates them; meanwhile, when going through the birth of her twin sons, and the death of Ezra the firstborn almost immediately after, I was in tears only being able to imagine that kind of pain and heartache. And finally, as Price finally begins to find success in the music business, I felt excitement and happiness. I only wish she had gone a little further, with more detail going into the present rather than just squeezing it all into the epilogue.

[Tyler G. Warne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margo Price has narrated one of the most entertaining, original, and beautiful audiobooks. Maybe We'll Make It, audiobook, is a winner. She pulls out emotions as if she lived them through another body. Stagefright does not exist in her experiences. Despite the sufferings, she describes, her determination to succeed and perform helps her achieve greatness. Though many musicians and artists experience substance abuse and succumb to it, she gives her life to music and performance. With tragedies present in her storyline, the uplifting sounds of her songs, voice, and playing make this book more cheerful than it ought to be. I feel sorry for the people who experience hardships as they strive to achieve their dreams, but they also serve as inspiration to carry on. And for the people who try to change their act midstream, those ‘little darlings’ will be happy to keep singing. Because Margo, Jeremy, and her family give their followers proof to not give up. As a musician who loves to play, I feel as though this book will help me make it.

[Kelsey Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever devoured an audiobook faster. I laughed, cringed, ugly cried and cheered. This should be required reading for anyone who’s ever been personally attacked by the phrase “ten year town” and also for anyone who’s ever requested “Wagon Wheel” from a cover band at a bar on Broadway.

Margo Price, you’re one hell of a storyteller!!!

[Nigel Sutcliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is not a surprise that Margo Price’s memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, is compelling, honest, and powerful. I doubt that she’s capable of anything less.

Price’s story does not make for easy reading, but you never want to walk away from it or from her. Her deep commitment to the life of a musician and an artist drove her away from her family and toward years of an almost feral existence. Price does not gloss over or romanticize the hard times she went though, nor is she looking for sympathy. She is simply – and beautifully – telling her story.

About 95% of Maybe We’ll Make It recounts Price’s struggle to attain enough of a career to be able to support herself. The focus is almost entirely on the times before the release of her breakthrough album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. So instead of a rags to riches (or, this being non-radio country music, semi-riches) story this captures her journey from rags to marginally better rags. At no time does Price seem to question her calling (my word, not hers) to be an artist and a songwriter. That drive, coupled with a fierce commitment to doing things her own way, is manifest on every page of “Maybe We’ll Make It.” In what might be her mission statement, Price writes that

Looking back, there was a romanticism in knowing that we might be failures but we were talented failures in a business that championed mediocrity. Even in the lonely shadows of the burning spotlight, beyond the endless roads to the sprawling cities and trash towns, between the empty gas tank and the underattended gigs, we were spreading the true gospel of meaningful music and the lost art of poetry and songs. We would not sell out.

Price gives us a glimpse into a side of Nashville we don’t think much about. We know about starving artists, of course, but our vision of them is rarely as graphic as Price’s depiction of her time washing dishes, living in run-down houses, and eating food salvaged from local restaurants. And we tend to think of that struggle as a short-term situation, but it took Price over a decade – 14 years of busking, singing at “open mics,” and, always writing songs – before she got to record what we know as her first album.

Price is both chilling and matter-of-fact in describing the challenges she faced in the music industry, including blatant sexism. One label, for example, rejected her album because, as they told Price, they already had “two girls” on their roster. She recounts her reaction:

That specific rejection stuck with me for a long time because it wasn’t personal, it was sexist. I wondered how many other talented women out there weren’t being signed simply because they were women. I carry that moment with me today, known that I’ve always had to work twice as hard as the men to get what I want. But the way I figure, twice the work means twice the practice, and maybe that just makes me stronger in the end.

At the center of Maybe We’ll Make It is a moment of profound loss – the death of one of Price’s newborn sons. Such experiences are always horrific but in Price’s case the hospital and her doctors make an unbearable situation even worse. Price’s grief envelops her; it becomes the lens through which she experiences every facet of her life. And it drives her to abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Price gave up alcohol (but not other drugs) early in the COVID-19 pandemic; in a moving essay in (of all places) GQ Magazine, she calls sobriety “the most rebellious thing I’ve every done.”

Although far from mushy or cloy, Maybe We’ll Make It is also a love story. We meet her collaborator, and now-husband, Jeremy Ivey very early, and the ups and downs of their relationship are central to Price’s story. She writes searingly about the impact the loss of her son had on her marriage in what may be the book’s most poignant passages. Also, it is interesting that as close as she and Ivy are, as romantic and musical partners, Margo Price is always careful to specify which songs she wrote, which he wrote, and which they created together. Making sure credit is properly given is a central part of her commitment to truth-telling.

Much as Midwest Farmer’s Daughter did in song, Price’s memoir also discusses the larger policy issues around poverty in America. (In fact, the book is really a 200-plus page explication of the lead song on that album, “Cruel Hands of Time.”) Price’s parents worked hard but were victims of natural and financial hardships well beyond their control. They were forced to leave the family farm they had owned for generations. That loss – financial and psychological – deeply impacted Price.

Price acknowledges how much Patti Smith’s memoir (Just Kids), which focused on Smith’s life in Greenwich Village before she came to fame, inspired her. Smith and Price have much in common – love of language, an outsider’s worldview, and determination enough to make it on their own terms. In that way Maybe We’ll Make It also stands with Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile’s wonderful memoir.

Smith, Price and Carlile are very different artists, but all bring an outsider’s perspective to their work.
Price’s relationships with her songs is one of the most interesting aspects of the book. She clearly takes songwriting very seriously, but she does not seem to be at all precious about her songs. It was particularly interesting to see some of the songs from Midwest Farmer’s Daughter show up almost as another writer might introduce a new character. We know that, say, “Hurtin’ on the Bottle” ends up as one of the strongest songs on an indelible album, but when are exposed to it here its just one song among many she is trying to work out.

Maybe We’ll Make It should be required reading for anyone thinking about how music is made in the 2020’s. That applies not only to artists, but also (perhaps especially) to club owners, journalists, or record company executives.

[Lisa Hirschfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept wanting to put it down but I thought, “surely there’s a climax coming” and it didn’t happen till the end. Not my favorite but glad I read it.