Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell take up abortion on new song, 'The Problem'

In "The Problem," songwriting wife-husband duo Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell show the weight of unconditional support in four words.

"I'm on your side," they sing. 

The song finds Shires and Isbell in a musical back-and-forth that wrestles with the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The two exchange lines — "What do you want to do?" Isbell sings at one point, to which Shires replies, "I'm scared to even say the truth" — culminating in a chorus that affirms unity for any decision that may come. 

The chorus sings, "And all I could think to say/ Is everything's going to be okay/ It's going to be alright/ I'm on your side." 

Shires released "The Problem" Monday, coinciding with International Safe Abortion Day. Proceeds from the song benefit The Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based reproductive justice organization. Listen to "The Problem" in the player above. 

"If anybody feels alone, I don't think they ought to," Shires told The Tennessean. "Or they can, but I'll be on their side if nobody else is." 

"The Problem" reaches earbuds as state leaders — in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and elsewhere, particularly throughout the South and Midwest — continue to push for abortion restrictions.

It debuts hours after multiple reports cited conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett as President Donald Trump's favorite to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, a nomination that experts say could challenge federal abortion rights for decades to come. 

Shires penned "The Problem" a few years ago, she said, but waited to release it because "it can be very scary to put something out that's divisive subject matter," she said. 

"I didn't want to bring anything down on my family but I keep getting madder and more frustrated," Shires said. "I feel like women's health and women's rights are important and you can't wait any longer." 

And the song pulls from when Shires "didn't have a good experience with ... terminating a pregnancy," she said. Strikingly candid lines — from conversations, observations and autobiographical details, Shires said — drive the song's message. 

She sings, "The scars won't even show/ At least that's what I've heard/ No bigger than a baby bird." 

On her experience, Shires said: "A girl ... had to take me [to the clinic] because somebody had to take you. She's not pro-choice but the thing that struck me the most about her was that even though we didn't agree (on) the same things — about the way I was handling stuff — she was still there to support me. 

"That's where I got the song idea," she continued. "The point of it is about caring enough for somebody where you can support them. ... I was trying to show that gray area." 

It likely won't be the last Shires sings of "The Problem," either. She cut another version of the song, using the same melody from the storytelling perspective of women discussing an abortion, to be released at a later date.

That song's called "Our Problem," Shires said. 

"You basically just need to be able to support someone you love while they try to do something hard," she said. "That's the basic thing ... basic human decency."