It’s a sure sign that a song is working when it translates across multiple genres, and country artist Kacey Musgraves proved that point on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge series when she covered SZA’s “Kill Bill.” Originally released on the R&B singer’s 2022 album “SOS,” the song is a murder ballad about getting revenge on your ex. Although it may seem like a wholly unexpected pairing, murder ballads are a staple of country music. Musgraves’ stripped-down arrangement lends the song a new context, with her sweet vocals contrasting the menacing lyrics.
Watch her performance:
SZA recognizes that the lyrics to “Kill Bill” are over the top. In an appearance on Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Chicken Shop Date series, the singer admitted that after writing the song, she thought, “That was so crazy and harsh. I was just randomly slightly enraged.” Nevertheless, “Kill Bill” scored SZA her first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It has also shown staying power with over 2.7 billion streams on Spotify as of May 2026.
Producer Carter Lang told Billboard that the mass appeal comes from its honesty. “It had this personality to it already. You can just see a cartoon playing out in your brain,” he said. “The fact that people loved it and lifted it up like that echoes the sentiment of being able to put your thoughts out there in the most authentic and even aggressive way, but over such a sweet-sounding, psychedelic-sounding beat.”
How Kacey Musgraves Turns SZA’s “Kill Bill” Into a Country Murder Ballad
Musgraves took the sweet-sounding beat to the next level. She made it her own by slowing the tempo a hair and raising the key from Ab to A, by my ear. It begins with light instrumentation of fingerpicked guitar and piano arpeggios. The lo-fi warbly synth lead of the original track is replaced by a reverby pedal steel that adds the sweet and lonesome sentiment found in country music for decades.
Donning a black cowboy hat and a matching outfit, Musgraves phrases the vocals in a pop manner. Clearly, it’s fun for her and her band, as she and the guitar player start smiling during the line “I’m so mature, I’m so mature, I’m so mature.” Her bandmates join in with close-harmony background vocals during the chorus, after which the bassist and drummer join the groove. The drummer uses brushes, adding to the light arrangement.
The Twist Ending That Changes the Meaning of “Kill Bill”
Musgraves makes a clever change to the lyrics that ultimately reimagine the song. In SZA’s version, every chorus says “I might kill my ex, not the best idea, his new girlfriend’s next” until the final chorus, which says, “I just killed my ex.” Musgraves gives the song a whole new direction by rounding out the final chorus with “I just kissed my ex, not the best idea, I kissed his girlfriend next, how’d I get here?” Fans in the YouTube comment section called the twist ending a “chef’s kiss.”
Musgraves makes “Kill Bill” less of a threat and more of a wink, reminding us that the song’s darkness is part of what makes it so compelling.
