Maren Morris says she never came close to giving up on the Nashville dream, but her "Circles Around This Town" journey has certainly had some low points.

Talking to Taste of Country Nights, the reigning ACM Female Vocalist of the Year recalls running into walls as a staff writer, shortly after moving to Music City. She wasn't trying to be a full-scale entertainer at that point. Morris' goal was to land songs on other artists' albums, but consistently she got the same feedback.

"Everyone kept telling me that these songs are great, but no one can do this vocal the way that you did it. And I remember being really offended by that," she shares when pressed to reveal the hardest part.

On Friday (Jan. 7), Morris shared "Circles Around This Town," her first single from a new studio album that's set to drop "soon." The song relies on details of her coming-to-Nashville story and leaves listeners with a message of hard work paying off.

"So many times I thought about leaving / Got my ass kicked trying to compete with / Everybody else’s ones that got away," she sings to begin the second verse.

"There was just not a ton of traction," Morris tells ToC Nights host Evan Paul. "I would get songs put on hold all the time, but they would never fully get to record mode. I remember thinking, ‘Maybe it wasn’t for me.'"

Moving back to Texas was never a realistic option, but the bad days were pretty soul-crushing. Writer's rounds at well-known venues including the Listening Room, the Basement and Belcourt Taps (where she'd soon meet her future husband, Ryan Hurd) steadied Morris. Eventually, the breaks came, and later — as her songs "My Church" and "80s Mercedes" hit — she figured out what people were really saying when they told her no one could sing the vocal like she could.

"Now looking back, I’m like, ‘Oh they were trying to tell me that I should be the one singing them,'" Morris says, smiling.

The full interview with Morris is coming next Thursday (Jan. 13) for Taste of Country Nights On Demand listeners.

PICTURES: See Inside Carrie Underwood's Beautiful Post-'American Idol' Home

Carrie Underwood invested her money wisely after winning American Idol in 2005. One of her first big purchases was a 3,099-square-foot home in the well-to-do Nashville suburb of Franklin, Tenn. Underwood paid $384,000 for a luxurious 3-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom stone and stucco home in a private gated community.

The house features a library, a vaulted ceiling and lovely amenities throughout, but while it's very nice, it's certainly not the kind of home you'd picture for a budding country superstar. Underwood wound up being a huge success right out of the gate with her debut album, Some Hearts, and she sold the home in Franklin for $372,500 in 2007, when she purchased the Brentwood mansion that she would later share with her husband, Mike Fisher.

Gallery Credit: Sterling Whitaker

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