Amanda Shires returns to Mobile with a lot of music to share: Not just tracks from her acclaimed 2022 solo album “Take It Like a Man” and her 2019 album with the all-woman supergroup The Highwomen, but also from “Loving You,” an album designed to showcase and honor one of her guiding lights, Bobbie Nelson.

And then there’s the 2023 documentary “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” released last spring. Though nominally centered around Shires’ husband and his band working on their 2020 album “Reunions,” it featured Shires prominently, both as Isbell’s trusted sounding board for lyrics and as his partner in a strained marriage. And that ties right back into her own music, because the songs on “Take It Like A Man” were written in the same time period.

Shires will appear at the Mobile Saenger Theatre on Tuesday, Oct. 24, opening for The Head and The Heart. As of Monday, a few dozen seats were still available for the 7:30 p.m. show, with prices starting at $29.50 plus fees.

Ahead of the show Shires took the time to answer a few questions about what she’s bringing to the stage these days.

I’m going to assume that “Take It Like a Man” is a big part of the show, so we can start there. I’m curious how you draw from it for a show, because it’s almost like a concept album. There’s this cycle of snapshots from a relationship, going from passion to disappointment to emptiness, rebounding through lust and a self-aware willingness to ride the cycle through another turn. This might be the dumbest thing you hear all day, but it sort of felt like a Pink Floyd album to me, telling a story in these finely detailed emotional shadings. Is it hard to just pull out individual songs for a show?

Amanda Shires: I don’t think that’s the dumbest thing ever. It’s right on. I mean, for real, a lot of the songs have to do with [what was going on in] “Running With Our Eyes Closed.” At that time I was dealing with a particularly hard part of our marriage and trying to explain that to myself, while at the same time still living in a world where, you know, I’m dealing with the politics of sex and the politics of what you’re supposed to be as a mother and what defines you as a person. Everything from, you know, the ups and downs, mostly down, part of my marriage and then also taking on things like sex and things that women go through and trying to deal with the fact that, society tells you you’re supposed to be a way or you’re supposed to be like this if you’re a mom or a sister or a wife or whatever.

I think that it’s important to remember that we’re all multidimensional creatures. And our first goal is to be true to ourselves so that we can have a satisfied self and then be all the things for other people. And that’s kind of what I’m trying to do with it.

And then I titled the record “Take It Like a Man,” and only recently discovered that I actually can’t take it like a man because I am a person that tells my feelings all the time. And as much as I try to shake it off or whatever, it’s always just, like, I have a hard time keeping things inside, which is kind of ironic now that I think about it.

Well, where would we be if it wasn’t a voyage of discovery?

When I was making the record, I was thinking about one time when I’d asked John Prine what’s the secret to a happy marriage or one that you stick with and sort it out. And he told me that the trick was being vulnerable.

So that stuck with me. And that’s why I put so much out there on the record because in the hopes that if being vulnerable was part of the magic trick to helping it all stay together then maybe it would help. It turned out for me that it did. Being vulnerable did help in that case. I’m not going to say it’s going to help every time.

It’s funny to hear you mention John Prine because I was going through the album song by song, line by line, there was a point where I thought of what he said in “Angel From Montgomery:” “If dreams were thunder and lightning was desire, this old house would have burnt down a long time ago.” But you have a knack for a good line yourself. In the song “Take It Like A Man,” you refer to “that grin you give when you want me to quit,” and it’s a portrait of a man who knows he’s in trouble.

I mean, it’s just, it’s just a true thing. You know, I like the little nuances of the folks and people and observations. The little things.

Going back to the original question: When you have an album that’s so of a piece and you go into a show and you’ve got multiple things you probably want to pack in and there are people out there who want to hear different things. How do you choose from this album in particular? I’m curious about what songs from “Take It Like A Man” have become fan favorites and performance favorites.

Well, when it’s just me on the bill, I’ve been playing every song from the record. But as an opener I’m limited to 45 minutes. So I try to change it up every night, just in case some people are traveling from show to show. And certain times there’s more of a need for a Highwomen song or “The Problem” song or something like that. Basically, I just try to be positive and say, I have this much time, if I do a good enough job, the people that like it might come to another show and see the songs they missed.

There are some songs on the album that seem like they’d be fun, like “Here He Comes,” the rebound song, a very self-aware song about wanting the thrill of being swept into some bad decisions.

That song almost was really bad because it started out being “Here Comes the Love.” And I wrote that down and I was like, ew.

There’s this phenomenon in pop songwriting, and I see it more in pop country, and I think of it as bumper sticker writing: You hear the title of a song and from that you already know basically the whole premise of the song. You have a real knack for putting a twist on things, or pulling a title out of the song that’s maybe different than the obvious choice. For example, I don’t think anybody’s going to read “Take It Like A Man” and guess where you’re going with that.

That’s probably why I’m not a household name. You know, I kind of see all that and I’m more interested in, I guess this is lofty, but I like to push it forward. I’m more interested in pushing things forward in that way lyrically and writing-wise. It’s tiring to listen to the same old cliche or to try and just let’s do puns all day. I mean, that’s fun. Let’s do it sometimes but not all the time.

And then, you know, I’ve never learned how to write to a title. I always title them at the end and I know that most folks can write the title first and then write the song, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. So, maybe that’s just something I’ll learn later.

What’s the format for this show? Who do you bring with you?

I’m with some of my band. I’ve got my drummer, Julian [Dorio], my longtime guitar player, Zach Setchfield and, playing the bass, he’s been with me a year now, his name is Jonathan Gray and he used to be in a band called Jump Little Children and I met him through Sadler [Isbell guitarist Sadler Vaden] and he’s gonna be playing the upright bass. We’re kind of doing a sort of stripped-back thing. For the past year, I’ve been doing full-on bands with amps and everything and this time I just wanted to kind of, you know, just strip it back so you can really hear the words.

I feel like sometimes for 45 minutes, it feels like the right thing to do to, to just take it back to center, I guess. And I get to play more fiddle so it’s selfish. It’s all fiddle solos.

“Loving You” obviously is a very different album – recorded with Willie Nelson’s sister, the late Bobbie Nelson, it’s not just a tribute to her, it’s one she was able to take part in. Does it fit into this run of shows at all?

It does. It’s a little bit odd though because I’ve been playing a couple of them and I didn’t bring my keyboard player and that record was made because of Bobbie Nelson [who was a pianist]. And, you know, she was one of the first women I saw working in bands where I was like, OK, cool, I could probably do this for my life’s work. And we made that record. But I’ve been putting them on anyway just because it’s not just her piano playing. I feel indebted to her and other women that have made the path wider. But it, it was more than her piano playing, I tell myself. It was her strength and her stick-to-it-iveness to keep going and playing and finding a place for music, when everybody else told her she couldn’t.

This is kind of an obvious thing to say or to bring up. But at this point, you’ve probably been that woman for a few girls in the audience. How does that feel?

That would be amazing if that’s the case. Even one. I would be honored if I was like that for somebody.

You touched on “Take It Like A Man” going back to that period when “Running With Our Eyes Closed” was being filmed. One thing that really stood out for me in that and kind of set me back was the realization that “Cover Me Up” invoked some bad memories for you. For most listeners, it’s purely a song about passion. But as the documentary reveals, it’s about the passion that follows a rebound from rock bottom, when your husband was off the rails and things started to turn ugly. In the film, you speak up about it being a reminder for you of that very scary moment before your husband cleaned up his act. The song is an anthemic hit that’s not going away. What’s your relationship to it now?

When you’re first going through, you know, once somebody is newly sober and you’ve been together a short time and you’re hoping that it’ll work and understanding that it doesn’t always, and, you know, falling off the wagon is a thing … it bothered me until we talked about it. It took time to get to a place to even be able to talk about it, because there’s a thing about like, yes, everybody should say their feelings, but I feel like the most important thing is you’ve gotta be careful too. Because it’s not just your own feelings you need to consider. It’s like, yes, everybody deserves to speak their piece, but you also have to be responsible and be careful and timing is everything. And, you know, and it is hard sometimes, how do you go into that conversation, too? Do I really want to talk about this right now? Is this how I want to spend our free time? But eventually it just has to be done.

And no, the song’s amazing and everybody should like the song for whatever they think it’s about and all that stuff. And I’m totally cool with it because little details inside the, the personal things don’t really have to do with everybody else. You know what I mean? It’s not something worth taking away from people either. And the song’s really good, so there.

Is there anything you hope they get out of the show?

I hope they like the fiddle. I hope they come and see the fiddle of fire. I hope they come and have fun listening to music and being around other people that feel the same way as they do.

And is there any new music in the works?

I’ve been starting to think about that and, you know, and I make lots of notes along the way. And I’m hoping to get recording again soon. It’s usually a good thing to do in the winter months.