Mickey Guyton's "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?" lyrics are meant to challenge you. The country singer's emotional performance of the song would still the ACM Awards if fans were invited.

Guyton sings with a special guest at the 2020 ACM Awards on Wednesday night (Sept. 16). It's going to be a moment that finds a nation focused on the native Texan, a relative country newcomer, but a veteran when it comes to leading a broader conversation about race and gender in country music.

Guyton, Emma Lee, Karen Kosowski and Victoria Banks wrote a song that speaks to parents and perspective parents raising a daughter in 2020. It's about the social injustices and inequities girls and women of every age face, often without recognition, or perhaps just with sad acceptance. The verses find a little girl full of dreams before a verse that serves as a crash of reality.

Find "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?" on Guyton's new Bridges EP along with another song that makes music of a social statement, "Black Like Me."

Remember: The best way to watch the ACM Awards is on TV, with ToC on your phone.

Who Is Mickey Guyton? Find Out: 

Mickey Guyton's "What Are you Gonna Tell Her?" Lyrics:

She thinks life is fair and / God hears every prayer / And everyone gets their ever after / She thinks love is love and if / You work hard, that's enough / Skin's just skin and it doesn't matter / And that her friend's older brother's gonna keep his hands to himself / And that somebody's gon' believe her when she tells.

Chorus:
But what are you gonna tell her / When she's wrong / Will you just shrug and say it's been that way all along / What are you gonna tell her / When she figures out / That all this time you built her up just so the world could let her down / Yeah, what do you tell her / What are you gonna tell her.

Do you just let her pretend / That she could be the president / Would it help us get there any faster / Do you let her think the deck's not stacked / And gay or straight or white or black / You just dream and anything can happen.

Repeat Chorus

Do you tell her not to fight / Is it worth the sacrifice / Can you look her in the face / And promise her that things'll change.

What are you gonna tell her / Maybe you can't / 'Cause there ain't no way, you can't explain what you don't understand / What the hell do you tell her / What the hell do you tell her / Oh, what are you gonna tell her / What are you gonna tell her.

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