Miranda Lambert is accustomed to the sound of cheers from her fans thanks to an arsenal of songs like her oh-so-close-to-the-Top-10 hit “Gunpowder & Lead”…but there was a time when it was Miranda who wanted to do the cheering. It was during her sophomore year in high school when — like a lot of young women — she dreamt of becoming a cheerleader. And — like a lot of young women — she experienced the disappointment of not making the cheerleading squad. “I was just devastated,” she recalls. But then her mom helped put things in perspective by telling Miranda, “You sing. Why do you need to be screaming every Friday night in the cold?” While it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, Miranda later realized those words couldn’t have been more on target. “That’s the smartest thing she could have said,” Miranda admits. “From then on, I just did what I did.” (AUDIO INFO BELOW)    

• “Gunpowder & Lead” is the second smash — following “Famous in a Small Town” — from Miranda’s ACM Album of the Year, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
• Her video for “Gunpowder & Lead” is also red-hot on the fan-voted GAC Top 20 Country Countdown — it’s number-two this week!

  Miranda Lambert follows her own path, thanks to some well-timed advice from her mom. (:24)
“I remember my sophomore year in high school, I didn’t make cheerleader. I tried out and didn’t make it, and I was just devastated. And I remember my mom said, she goes, ‘You sing. Why do you need to be screaming all…every Friday night in the cold?’ And I was…you know, at that time, I didn’t like to hear that, you know? I wanted to be a cheerleader, but then I just realized, that’s the smartest thing she could have said. It’s that simple. Like, I could just do what I do instead, and so from then on, I just did what I did.”