Amanda Shires is “Nobody’s Girl”

“Nobody’s Girl” shows Shires taking control of her music and her story and perhaps doing some revision of her own catalog.

307Renee

05 Oct 2025 — 5 min read

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If you’d told me three years ago that Amanda Shires would get me in her divorce from Jason Isbell, I wouldn’t have believed you.

First, I wouldn’t have thought the two would divorce given their seemingly perfect marriage of two fiercely creative artists.

Second, I would have assumed that in the event of a divorce, I’d go with Isbell. I had, after all, been a fan since first hearing him on the Drive-By Trucker’s 2003 Decoration Day. I thought Patterson Hood would always be my preferred DBT vocalist, but the opening lines of the title track pretty much ended that for me. That I was familiar with Shires’ music at all was largely through her association with Isbell.

Sure, I’d bought her releases — “Deciphering Dreams” remains a favorite — but I was mostly in it for him and his thoughtful, very southern songs. I mean, he wrote “Cover Me Up” for her after Shires helped him get sober.

Absolutely, I loved the music, too, but I also bought their story: He was a talented addict who struck up a relationship with her; she helped him get clean when he was ready; and now the two have a beautiful daughter and careers spent making music. It was the ultimate romance, but it was real.

And I bought it completely.

When the news dropped of their impending divorce, instigated by Isbell, I was stunned. (In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been given the documentary Running with Our Eyes Closed).

He was, it turned out, just another guy, and while that shouldn’t have mattered — the music is the music — I found that for me, it did.

I thought I’d fully internalized that I’d been involved in a parasocial relationship with the Americana power couple, but I soon understood that I needed to interrogate that notion further.

The two shared (mostly on Instagram) their ways forward: Isbell took up with artist Anna Weyant while Shires adjusted to being a single parent and working through grief. I found myself identifying with her experience and becoming a serious fan of her work.

Apparently, my parasocial tendencies have not improved. But there was just something so relatable in her sharing the stories of putting together the pieces of a life that she thought was settled. (My own experiences found me relating, perhaps too much, to the ones she described.)

Isbell’s “divorce record,” Foxes in the Snow, was released in March of 2025, complete with a Weyant original for the cover.

I’ve only listened to it a couple of times — lyrics like “I love her well, and I love her sick / I love the carrot, but I really like the stick” and “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart / and I don't like it” just were not for me. (And perhaps they suggested just how much he missed Shires’ keen editing of his lyrics.)

Shires’ divorce record, “Nobody’s Girl” was something I waited for eagerly, though.

Her work with producer Lawrence Rothman had been solid, and snippets she would leave on Instagram, only to delete them soon after, offered tantalizing glimpses into an artist trying to make sense of things. That said, Shires really didn’t want to make a divorce record, as she explained to Variety. But Shooter Jennings had other ideas:

I’ll be honest with you, I tried to skip all of that [making a record with songs about the split], because I wanted to just go to the part where I get to feeling better about life. And then Shooter (Jennings) said, “You can’t just skip all this! — as your divorce record consultant.” I was like, “It’s not really a divorce record.” Or maybe it is. But he said, “You can’t just skip all that, because then it’s not acknowledging all the (hard parts).” Which is true. I was gonna go one way, and Lawrence wanted me to go this way, and I was being stubborn. And then Shooter was the tiebreaker — not the tie-breaker, maybe, but the voice of reason that somehow got in there. And I listened.

Nobody’s Girl was absolutely an album I wanted on vinyl for my collection, both to have it and to support Shires’ work.

On the first listen, I savored alternating between examining the cover and following along with the lyrics — and a Shires album demands close attention to the writing.

It begins with the uplifting “A Way It Goes,” a song that acknowledges the hurt while refusing to allow it to define Shires’ story.

Nobody’s Girl shows Shires taking control of her music and her story and perhaps doing some revision of her own catalog. For example, “Streetlights and Stars” harkens back to “Parking Lot Pirouette,” this time with Shires accepting how different things are now than they were then. Another case in point is “Strange Dreams,” which seems like an update of “Deciphering Dreams.”

In both cases, Isbell’s guitar is gone, and Shires’ perspective is different even though the topics are similar. (Perhaps this is “Amanda’s Version?”) Her fiddle playing is transcendent.

There’s a lot to like on Nobody’s Girl, though for now, I’ve mostly thought about “The Details.”

The song works on a number of levels.

Initially, it seems like a tell-all, and certainly, Shires reveals more of what she experienced. But “The Details” is less about getting even and more about committing her story to the record.

He erases the details
And I'm history
No matter how clear I keep the memories
He rewrites them
So he can sleep

But for me, this is, perhaps, the most gutting couplet of the entire album:

The thing is he justifies it, using me
And cashing in on our marriage

If Isbell can exploit their marriage for his own uses, she can as well. Clearly, Shires is reflecting on her role in all of this.

As Natalie Weiner writes in Texas Monthly:

Nobody’s Girl is a trek through her recent past, when her partner got more attention, recognition, and acclaim than she did.

She was fine with that setup for years. “I did a lot of what you do when you’re in a marriage for a long time, a lot of compromising and bending and being accommodating, a lot to keep the peace and the dreams going,” she explains. “I did that knowingly, because I was doing it for us. I didn’t feel like it was a bad trade or anything at the time, because I thought it was forever.

“Now I don’t feel that way,” Shires concludes with a laugh. “Like, what the f—, man? I just gave you my whole life and you ripped it to shreds.”

Nobody’s Girl finishes with “Not Feeling Anything,” which is a song about finding equilibrium again after feeling many things while working through the divorce. Both the conclusion and the opening, “A Way It Goes” give the reader closure: Things work out, even if there is turbulence in getting there.

Shires has crafted a beautiful and careful album, one that chronicles refinding and reinventing oneself following a traumatic rupture. “Nobody’s Girl” is not a story of rejection; rather, it’s an anthem of learning to belong fully to one’s self.

But it is also gorgeous in its own right and, hopefully, it brings the kind of audience to Shire’s music that she has long deserved.

As always, thanks for reading —

307Renee