Miranda Lambert joins Kelleigh Bannen on the latest episode of Essentials Radio on Apple Music Country to discuss the stories behind her biggest hits – including writing “Over You” with ex-husband Blake Shelton, why ’The Weight of These Wings’ was an album she “needed to make”, being terrified at her first CMAs performance in 2005, and more. Listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand at apple.co/_EssentialsRadio and listen to the Miranda Lambert Essentials playlist on Apple Music here.
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About Writing “Over You” With Blake Shelton…
My ex-husband, Blake, had lost a brother and it’s one of those moments where even if you’re married to someone, sometimes you find something new about them. Dudes don’t open up about things but he started telling me about the experience of it all. And I was like, “Have you ever written about it?” And he’s like, “No,” and he was like, “Well, my dad just says, “You don’t get over it. You just get used to it.” And I was like, “Well, could we write it? Do you want to try or is that invasive?” You don’t know how to… I would never try to write your story because I didn’t live it, but maybe I could help because I’m an outside perspective but I feel your pain talking to me right now….It was really a special moment and I’m so glad we shared that song and that it helped his family heal, to have that together.
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About Her First CMA Performance in 2005…
I was terrified. And I remember I was so worried about the budget because there was so much fire and it’s expensive and I was like, “Am I going to have to pay this back to the label? Is this going on my tab?” I was all panicked… I don’t know why for some reason I was worried about that, but it was also my first CMA to ever attend, which I used to watch CMA and ACMs and have a legal pad and write down all the nominees and circle the ones I wanted to win. And I mean, I was in it. There I am on this stage at Madison Square Garden, never done anything like that before. I mean, Nashville Star was the biggest thing I had done as far as an audience goes, but it was a TV audience. It wasn’t in real person so I was so scared and…I had all this weave, a million pounds of hair and hairspray because that’s what you do in country music. And I was like, “What if I catch my hair on fire?” My manager’s like, “It’ll be even more press.” I’m like, “Okay.”
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About Hearing “The House That Built Me” For The First Time…
That song was on a pitch CD from Scott Hendricks to Blake and we were driving home from DFW one night and we pop in pitch songs. It’s fun. And that song came on and it was piano, male vocal. I think Tom… was singing it. Yeah. And I literally was like, “You have to pull over.” I was sobbing and he’s like, “This is really getting to you.” And I was like, “I don’t know what happened.” I mean, it overtook my body for some reason that just because you hear that first line and you’re like, “Where’s this going? Oh my God. How do they know?” And so, I was like, “I can have this one.” He’s like, “I think with that reaction, you need it.” But I think I cared about it so much that I think it found its perfect home…It’s the greatest song I’ve ever recorded. I wish I would have written it.
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About Auditioning For Her Manager as “Pistol Annies” (with Ashley Monroe and Angelina Pressley)…
The first day we were together we knew it. It was instant…But my manager Marion made us audition because she had worked with The Chicks and she was like, “I know what girl bands entail.” And so we took Jed, Angelina’s little four year old boy, and we went to her house and we sat down on her couch and she goes, “All right, play me three songs.” And we were like, “Okay,” and we played our Hell on Hills and she was like… She was like, “Okay.”
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About Writing and Recording ‘The Weight of These Wings’ Album…
It was just a record I needed to make. It’s one of those… I guess probably every artist has those songs or records in their timeline at some point. It’s just something you need to do for yourself. Everything was so noisy and so chaotic in my life and my personal life and my personal life was splayed all over for the public. And it just was like… I stopped talking. I was wearing all black on stage. I just stopped talking at all…And I was like, “Man, I need to tell my story myself and where I’m at myself and I can do that because I’m a songwriter.”
Miranda Lambert Tells Apple Music About “Settling Down”…
“Settling Down” is… That’s a title that I had written sitting in the passenger seat of the bus because I was thinking like, “I miss home, but I’m really glad to be on the road.” It’s always this thing. Girls with, or people with that gypsy spirit inside of them, it’s like you can’t quite nail it down. My mom always says to me, “You’re a wild child and a homing pigeon.” She would say, “You have both.” It’s a very confusing thing to have both, but I’m very nesty but I also need to go….I do love to be home and I have a farm. That’s where I’ve been hanging out, but I don’t feel complete without the music in my life and without the road and without the people and the band and the comradery. I just need it and that’s a good thing. That’s a good place to be.
