NEW YORK • If you ask Kacey Musgraves - the country singer-songwriter who won a surprise four Grammys on Feb 10, including Album of the Year - how her week has been, you will get a pretty good idea of her default manner.

"I've had better."

Her tongue-in-cheek deflection spoke to the shock that a progressive Nashville misfit from Texas could have beaten rappers Cardi B, Drake and Kendrick Lamar for the highest annual honour in music.

Golden Hour, Musgraves' third major label album, was critically beloved but had barely been embraced by country radio and was far from a smash.

But it went on to pick up Grammys for Best Country Album, Best Country Solo Performance (Butterflies) and Best Country Song (Space Cowboy).

In Musgraves' first interview since her Cinderella moment, she reflected on this year's Grammys, her place in the Nashville scene and what is to come.

How have you been celebrating?

Lots of R&R time. Definitely happy moments with the team, but also celebrating with food.

Enjoying having some burgers - note the plural nature. But I am already back to a week of shows.

And how did you celebrate that night - did you go hard or just crash at the hotel?

I went really hard at Fatburger. I am not, like, hugely into an after-party scene, usually. I kind of like celebrating on my own terms.

But we did stop by.

And then afterwards, not only did I have a fried chicken sandwich but I also had a cheeseburger... And I ate both, 100 per cent, and fries.

I sat there and ate it in the restaurant in my Valentino dress. I went straight from shaking Mick Jagger's hand to having a fried chicken sandwich in my hand.

What do you remember about the moment your name was called for that final award?

Disbelief, in general. But weirdly, a sense of calmness.

Leading up to an award like that, you have a little hope, I think, that maybe you will win. But I was fine with not winning because it was just such a crazy compliment to be nominated alongside such giant albums.

So you can hope that you may have a small chance, but I definitely was nowhere near banking on anything. It was a really beautiful moment and I was somehow able to find the words to get out what I wanted to say.

I do not think it is something that you can process until way later.

Any standout Grammy moments from behind the scenes?

If you could have seen us quick-changing into my Dolly Parton outfit and giant hair in a matter of seven minutes, that would have been something to see.

If I would have just walked away from that night having just performed with Dolly, that would have felt like the win of a lifetime for myself, because she is the ultimate, as far as I'm concerned. Obviously the Grammys got some flak last year about its representation of women, and this year was an attempt at a make-up.

How do you think the show did?

I think the Grammys definitely made up for last year's lack of female representation, but the credit also has to go to the women who are the ones making the art.

You never want to think that there is a crazy influx - a 180 from last year - because of (tokenism).

It would be a shame to feel that way. But in this case, there were a lot of really beautiful pieces of work released. So I am not going to think about it that much. You have not always been embraced by the Nashville establishment.

Were you surprised that you cleaned up in the country categories?

Country music itself and the Nashville community have always shown me great support and love from the beginning.

When I first moved to town about 11 years ago, I got a giant education from the Nashville songwriting community.

I made a ton of friends, I worked really hard for years there before I was even an artist myself.

So I feel really connected to that community and I feel like they do have my back. That is a whole different side of Nashville.

Can we expect a new album this year?

My goal, in general, is just to be able to stay somewhat inspired by something, and to be able to tap some kind of creative vein. So I will poke around and see if I can catch some kind of creative wind, songwise, at some point soon.

There are a couple of songs I really like. I have no idea where that is going to go, but that is the fun of it - exploring until you can find something to start packing into the next snowball.

NYTIMES