Miranda Lambert: Assets to support the release of new album, Wildcard on Friday 11/1
Wildcard Cut x Cut Audio
I had certain songs that I really, really loved. “White Trash” was one of them that I just was like, “I want this to work,” and it was one of the hardest ones we cut. It was the one that gave us trouble out of all of them just because Natalie [Hemby], Luke [Dick], and Laura Veltz started it. I came in to write, and they were like, “We saved you one that we think is so you.” And I was like, “Thanks, I think. It’s called ‘White Trash.’ I appreciate y’all so much.” But it was just everything it said from the very first line- “I’m finally on the up and up, a little 401K, traded in my trailer park for a neighborhood with a gate.” Which I have a trailer park on my farm, so I really didn’t, but it has a gate though, so I kind of did both. But I felt like just owning it, just owning who you are, I can’t ever hide who I am. If I ever would try, I just am who I am, it’s on my face, it’s what I walk out in life. So I just felt like this song was a way to just own it, be who you are, even if it’s kind of ugly sometimes.
“Mess with My Head” was a little more rock ‘n’ roll than I had ventured to do in a while. I don’t know, it had this kind of energy to it, and it’s kind of grunge, and I think hanging out in New York City a lot lately had kind of inspired me in a way in kind of a little bit of a rock vibe, and “Mess with My Head” fit right in that pocket. I wasn’t sure that I could nail it, but I loved the song so much, and we tried, and it worked. But it’s funny because my husband was playing it in the car, cause he thinks I still make money if he plays my music which I really appreciate. It had just come out so he was playing it on whatever streaming service, and the next song was “Kerosene.” People have been saying, “’Mess with My Head’ is a departure from what you’ve done,” and it is on the last record, or maybe the last two, or [Pistol] Annies. But “Kerosene” came on right after “Mess with My Head,” and I was like, “It’s not different at all, actually. It’s the same thing I’ve been doing, I just took a little hiatus from that rock vibe.” I love it, we played it live and it’s fun. This is one of those songs too that’s not overthought, like, “Let’s just write it how we feel it.” And it’s not like some kind of deep, dark secret. You kind of paint a picture of what it is, and it’s all about reverse psychology, really. Like, “That’s not love, and I like it.” That’s not true sometimes, but you’ve got to act tough.
I kind of keep a running list of titles on my phone. I have a notebook too, but I don’t always have that on me. So if I hear something or see something I try to keep it, even if it’s not a title, but it’s a line or maybe it’s just an inspiration, but “It All Comes Out in the Wash” was stuck in my head for a while, just that phrase. My mom used to say that, and my grandma, just as a phrase that they would say to us when we were worried about something. But I went in with the Love Junkies one day and was like, “I have this title that I think could be cool.” I had just gotten back from a trip to New Orleans, and I had gone to my first crawfish boil like that. I mean we had them in East Texas or my dad would make them with a pot, but this was a street fest. It was like a mile of tables with crawfish on them. It kind of blew my mind, but I walked into this street fest, and I was wearing a white t-shirt. And I thought instantly, like, “This isn’t a good idea. I look like a rookie. Everyone’s gonna know I’m not from here.” So I just was talking to the girls about it, and that ended up being the first line of the song. And we just kept going and everyone’s kind of having a scenario of what they might have done or seen that was maybe a little shady or a little dirty. It was fun to write, I mean it kind of wrote itself, just situations that you get yourself in. I would say the toughest stains to get out are emotional stains. There’s not any real remedy for that except maybe some Tito’s and some therapy and some time. Then one day you wake up and it’s fine. Just picture this emotional Tide Stick that you can carry around in your pocket. When you really need to use it, it erases what you need to erase. All of these things are metaphors for getting clean emotionally and spiritually and just forgiving yourself, more than anything. I think you kind of just bog yourself down in maybe regrets or mistakes or stressing out over something you should be doing that you’re not. This song is just a fun way to remind yourself that you’re cool and everything is fine, you know what I mean? Take a breath really, in a fun way though. It’s not a heavy way to get the message across, which is nice.
I was talking with my bus driver one day. We were both going through something hard, and there’s no better way to talk about it than over the highway, right? We both at the time were like, “Are we settling up or are we settling down?” With people, with life, with our situations, like what’s going on? I kind of wrote that in my phone, and Natalie [Hemby] had this line when I went in to write with her and Luke, “Should I give up sunsets for marigold mornings?” And I thought that was so pretty, I said, “Well that might go with this kind of idea that I have.” Of course Luke had this beautiful melody ready to roll. But it was after I met my husband, and we weren’t married yet when we were writing this song, but it was a very like real place where Natalie’s got a daughter, and she’s doing all this amazing stuff. She’s in the Highwomen and she’s writing songs every day and having hits and traveling. And Luke is a dad, but he’s also in an amazing rock band called Republican Hair. And his four-year-old’s running around while we’re writing, and then he stays up all night making tracks. And so I’m getting on a bus, but I’m also going home to be with someone I love. So it’s this juxtaposition of, “Can I do both? Is that ok? Should I feel bad that I’m home or should I feel bad that I’m leaving?” Cause you get antsy when you’re used to moving and going, and having been touring since I was seventeen. So having time off and meeting my husband and being a person going to family breakfasts and birthday parties and stuff, it was like, “Well when are we leaving? Where’s the bus?” For a while, it took me a minute to get used to that. And now I’m adjusting back to being on the road again. Wherever the people that you love are is home, so it can be anywhere. But it was a cool song to write at the very time that we needed to write it, because I feel like a lot of people feel that way, that they have this gypsy spirit, and they want to be rock ‘n’ roll, but they also love having a morning at home with their bare feet on their own kitchen floor. It’s an amazing struggle to deal with actually. I don’t know if I’ll ever get too comfortable in one or the other. You know, my mom always tells me, it’s where the line comes from but she’d always say, “You’re a wild child and homing pigeon.” Because I really love to be home, I love my animals and my family and making casseroles and just listening to Merle Haggard. I love to be on my own porch. But I also am like, “I can leave and be ready to go anywhere in fifteen minutes. I just need a guitar and some fringe, and I’m ready to roll out the door. Everything else you can buy at Target.” I have this itch always to find a new adventure, but I’m always so ready to just walk through my own front door.
It’s kind of a wildcard, “Holy Water,” on the record. Brent Cobb is one of my favorite artists. I mean I have been a fan of his for like 12 years. And he is just now getting to me, like credit where credit is due cause he’s out on the road with Chris Stapleton and making these amazing records with Dave Cobb. But I just wanted to write with him because we had tried before in the past and it didn’t work out or whatever. But we actually wrote a song on the last record, me and him and Adam Hood. So when time came around to write again, I was like, “Are you off the road any time?” And he was like, “Let’s get together.” So Brent came over, and he brought his guitar player Mike [Harris], who is also an amazing writer too, and his buddy Scotch [Taylor] who is a writer. And they showed up drunk, and I had to order pizza, which was completely expected and I anticipated it and I was enjoying the whole show. And we’re late, I had the magic porch ready to go, ordered some pizza, got some beer. And by the time the night was over, we had so much fun just talking about- I mean all of these guys are red necks, I felt like I was hanging out with all the boys from home, you know what I mean? And they were letting me be one the guys which is what I love, it was just a really fun night. And there was definitely a 1986 Ford pickup in my driveway the next morning because it broke down, which makes it even better. It was just one of those- Nobody had a vision in mind, nobody had an idea. But Brent opens his mouth and it is inspiration, so started playing and Mike was playing, and “Holy Water” kind of came out of nowhere. I feel like each one of us needed to say something in that song. I’m from the Bible Belt and I’ve had a lot of times where I was judged for one thing or another since I started singing that secular music. And some of the worst people that my parents were put on the case for were pastors of huge churches. So I was like, “They’re sellin’ snake oil from the pulpit at the church on main” cause that’s happening. And everybody kind of pitched in their own flavor of what they wanted to say about holy water. But it all leads us back to holy water, which is whatever you want it to be. And Scotch Taylor said one of my favorite lines in the song. He said, “You can’t skip a stone when the river’s all but gone and there’s not even a cloud in the sky.” And I was like, “Well that’s profound, that’s going in the song.” It just brought the whole thing together.
I feel like Earl got lucky in our song, because we didn’t actually kill him, yet. It’s kind of like the prequel to “Goodbye Earl” if you will. Karen Fairchild came over to the magic porch, and we were doing the Bandwagon Tour with Little Big Town. We were trying to figure out our set list and how to get 17 people on the stage at one, because we had both acts and all the band on stage, so we had two drummers, and we were trying to figure out logistics on how that was going to go in the set and everything. She came over and we had some wine, I mean because that is how you can be creative, you know it really helps with the process. And we were talking and hanging and it got late and I was like- And of course Karen, I show up, I’m at home, I’m wearing slippers and yoga pants. And she shows up in her Gucci boots and her fur of course, and I’m like, “Ugh, why are you always so awesome.” And I was like, “You can’t drive,” because we drank wine. And she lives right around the corner, and she was like, “I’m good.” And I was like, “Not in the outfit, you are too pretty for prison. You are not getting pulled over and going to jail tonight.” And so she ended up writing with the Love Junkies the next day, and then I went over there that afternoon. And they were like, “Well we heard this morning from Karen that we might have a title.” And I was like, “Oh yeah?” And they were like “Yeah, from last night’s wine session.” And I was like, “Too pretty for prison, right? I kind of had a feeling that’s what y’all were talking about.” So we started writing it, and it was one of those- We giggled the whole time we were writing it. I mean it’s funny. And as soon as we got through the first verse, I was like, “This is a Maren Morris duet. I hope that she-” I think I texted her even that day, going, “I think I have a duet for us.” So to see it all actually happen and her coming in and singing was really fun. She is my favorite new artist, and she’s not really new at this point but she is getting some really good traction. I have known about Maren and have known her a little bit for a long, long time, since we were both kids in Texas trying to figure this out. I’ve just been following her journey, and I’m so proud of what she is and who she is. She inspires me, and she is an amazing singer and an amazing writer and she works her tail off, you know? And so, we are from like 45 minutes away from each other, so I felt like of all the songs, this one is back to the root for both of us. We’re like Thelma and Louise, but we slam on the brakes at the cliff. Like, “Hold on, we can get someone to do this dirty work for us,” which in my perfect world, the real Thelma and Louise would be in this video. I’m going to tell Maren to pull some strings, I’m sure she knows people.
I am a locomotive, but I am powered by love. That’s truly what drives me—love for what I do, love for the people in my life. When I’m not doing well in the love category, I’m not doing that well. So I feel like “He gives me wings” is a good metaphor to just sort of say, like, “Fueled by love, to keep rolling,” you know? And it feels good to sing the line, “I’m like a locomotive, I don’t run out of steam” because I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I’ve had a crazy, emotional, amazing journey through all of it. But somedays I feel like I’m just getting started. I mean I love writing songs, I love touring, I love going on the road and sitting in rooms with brilliant writers that push me, and going to the studio with someone like Jay Joyce and watching him take my little idea and make it magic. I love those things so I am powered and fueled by that. So singing that song every night reminds me- I mean I am 35, I have like a whole ‘nother 20 years ahead of me if I’m lucky to keep doing this, reinventing, and creating more. It’s just really a reinvention of life, kind of taking a new turn, you know? But it doesn’t change anything about who I am, where I started, and where I have come from. It just adds to the story and makes it that much better. It’s the sugar in the tea.
“Bluebird” is special. It’s got, it makes me feel- It kind of makes me go inward a little bit and think about the lyrics, and it’s got this hope to it. It’s got a darkness to though, but it’s also hopeful in a way of life is going to give me lemons, period. Like if there wasn’t problems we wouldn’t appreciate the great days, you know? But going through those things and overcoming problems, whatever they are make us strong and appreciate the sun. You know, 10 straight days of rain and then the sun comes out. And you are like, I forgot how much I loved it! And Luke had the idea, because it was a poem, “Bluebird” was a poem. And he was like, “We need to write this as a song. This just made me feel something when I heard it.” He was texting me the poem and I was like, “Man I would love to write that with you.” And it seemed like it was going to be a little bit of a challenge because it is such beautiful words and such a deep thought, we wanted to build around that. And he started saying, “I’m a turner, I turn pages all the time, don’t like where I am at, 34 was bad, so I just turn to 35.” And then I thought, “Man, that’s so ‘It All Comes Out in the Wash.’” It all comes back to turn the page, next. And the next page you are going to be better, and the next page you are going to be better. I love “Bluebird,” it’s just so special. It’s like a song that I have never written before, I am so proud to have been a part of it. Since we wrote “Bluebird,” I have been seeing bluebirds everywhere. And the bluebirds have been there, bluebirds are always around. I have a farm, but I never saw them like I see them now. It kind of remind me to open my eyes to what is around me, you know? And now that seeing a bluebird sitting on a branch means so much more to me that just staring into the woods. It’s like I see a little piece of hope sitting there with wings. And it’s a reminder, you know? And to me, every person that has heard it has said something about how it has touched them, so I think that it’s one of those songs where every person takes what they need to from it.
It’s like one of my favorite Rolling Stones covers. “Must be love, it’s a bitch,” except this is a little nicer way of saying it. “How Dare You Love” happened absolutely organically. Ashley [Monroe] had a write with Jamie Kenney, and he’s an amazing guy in town and I had never met him or written with him. But she was like, “Why don’t you come in on this write? He has amazing tracks, he’s really cool.” She had never written with him either, but she was like, “Why don’t we do it together? It’ll push us both,” because her and I are so used to writing together, it would be nice to sort of have that comfort but also bring someone in that would totally shake up our world. And we go over there and we just started kind of talking about life. I was introducing myself to Jamie and saying, “Yeah, I just got married,” and Ashley’s got a baby and she’s married. We were talking about our journey as friends together over the course of a long time, what, 14 years or something? And somehow we landed on “How Dare You Love.” Just come out of nowhere and humble me and teach me a lesson. Because just when you think you don’t need it or you found a comfortable spot, love will infiltrate and shake your whole world up in a very unexpected way, and it’s the biggest blessing. This song, it kind of gets me teary-eyed every time I hear it because I feel every lyric of it. As soon as you say to yourself, “I’m good, I’ve got a thing, working on me,” it’s almost like God goes, “Oh that’s funny, your plan looks funny to me. Here’s my plan.” The good news is having an open heart to that- And I’ve never been one to shy away from a risk when it comes to love. It’s gotten me in some pickles, but I like pickles, so I just keep digging in the jar for more. And I just feel like, “Take a risk.” I’ve learned over the years- And I have so much more to learn, like I’m 35, I have a whole journey ahead of me, too. But so far I’ve learned that all the clichés about taking risks, jumping off, whatever. What do you have to lose, really? Because safety is not a place where I want to live. Complacency is not anything that inspires anybody. It’s ok to be comfortable and happy, but you’ve got to take the risk to get to those places, you know? And it will come with pain, it will come with sorrow and regret and guilt and whatever if it goes awry, but it passes and then it gives you wings.
I never grew up with a fire escape of any kind. I mean, it was just walk out the front door if the house is on fire. So hanging out in New York, we had a place in SoHo, and people are out on their fire escapes. I started reading this book about- It was the artist district, and it still is, but how that all came together and how SoHo became this hub of creativity. And I felt it, living in the apartment that art all in it. And so the Love Junkies flew up to New York, kind of on a whim, and we were sitting in the window and hanging out on the fire escape thinking up ideas, and I was like “Fire escape is-” Well, the interesting part about our fire escape is that there wasn’t really any stairs. So really it was just kind of a, I don’t know, it made me think, that’s why I thought of the title I guess. Because standing out there, I was like, “This is more of a balcony. Imma burn with this building but I’m gonna be outside in all my glory doing it.” I just felt like- And being in love, and being a newlywed, and all the things that that sort of makes you feel. It’s heat, you know? It’s heat, it makes your cheeks rosy. And I thought, “What a cool way to say all of that with the fire escape reference.” And the girls and I just sat there and kind of heard all of the street noise, and music in the background and horns and people rushing by, just like New York City is. I mean you feed off that energy. And no better people to feel that energy with than the Love Junkies, right? Because they can make all the magic happen. But this song, I love this song. It kind of takes me back in time. I kind of picture like this 60’s and 70’s era when I hear the music, of these two people falling in love and it being like a metaphor of starting this huge fire.
Luke Dick and Jon Randall started this song, it’s called “Pretty Bitchin’,” sounds like it is right up my alley. They had put the Airstream reference in there. They had already had the Airstream reference and the Tito’s reference and I was like, “Well you kind of didn’t give me a choice, I mean you just wrote my biography in two verses.” I just love this song and what it says, and at the very end it says, “Pretty good band, pretty damn good fans.” And it’s like at the end of the day, I get to travel around in a bus with ponies on it, have a cocktail, and play country music. And people sing it back and enjoy it. And that’s literally all I have ever wanted in my life is that. It is pretty bitchin’. But yeah, you can get bogged down in all the things but we all have a pretty good life, and we need to live it. Marion is my manager, she always tells me, “You need to sit in your life and stop.” Cause I am kind of programed for what I do to like move to the next town, move to the next thing, move to the next record, the next city, the next phase, whatever that is. And as I’ve gotten to be in my 30s, I’ve really learned to sit and absorb and be in my life, and just go for it, whatever that is. Not in a way of moving to the next, but in a way of, “I’m going to take this experience and make it mine, and do it to the biggest and best capacity I can do it.” When you’re younger you forget to take all that in, but now I just like want to give the whole crowd a hug and just be like, “Thank y’all, this is the best day ever, love y’all, I got to have lobster, it was great, you sang my songs to me and I sang them to you.” It’s just really important thing, no matter what, even if I am just sitting on a picnic blanket with my husband and it is sunny. It’s like, “Drink that in,” because those are moments that when there’s crappy days, you can feed off that.
“Tequila Does” starts as a waltz, and then it goes into a two-step, and then back to a waltz, and back to a two-step. I just really want to play it at like a dive-bar, Texas honky tonk, like I want to go play it at Green Hall. And I want to watch the cowboys dance, and I want to watch what they do and if they can keep up with me. It just is country, and country music makes me happy. No matter how rock or edgy or scorned you can get, when you come back to a country song with a steel guitar, it like makes my soul feel like it’s on fire. It’s just my roots, it’s what I loved the most about the music that I grew up on, and that’s why I love making that kind of music. I mean, it’s stone cold country with a Texas flair for sure.
I mean “Track Record” is a pretty honest song. It’s just saying “I’ve had some bumps along the way.” But to me, we all have that, and people who act like they don’t, those people are boring to me, people that shove their dirty laundry in the closet. I’d rather just have it on the floor, because then I feel more comfortable, you know what I mean? Like, if you don’t own up to whatever you have, regrets or not, I don’t think that I relate to you in any way because I just don’t like fake. I read this quote that Dolly said that was she doesn’t have any regrets because she took whatever information she could and made her decision based on what she knew at the time. So that’s why she didn’t live with regret, and I thought that was so interesting and profound, really. And “Track Record” reminds me of that quote because it’s like, I made these decisions based on what I knew at the time, and now I am who I am because of it. And some of those are good decisions, some of those were things I needed to do, career-wise or love-wise or family-wise or whatever. But “Track Record” is one of those that’s not heavy, but it’s honest. I mean if you don’t have a past, then what have you been doing? I feel sorry for you. I’m just a big believer in being yourself and being ok if someone knows something about you that may not be flattering. Just being ok with that, because it gives you character. It’s like a soul tattoo, it gives you color and experience and conversation. And I don’t enjoy just surface chat, in music or in conversation. In life, I would just rather go right in and be real with people.
“Dark Bars,” it means a lot to me, that song. Liz Rose came early when the Love Junkies came to New York, she landed early and I was like, “Let’s go find a dark bar so we can find some stories.” And she goes, “Well that is our story.” And I was like, “Oh, you’re right.” Because I feel at home in dark bars, because I feel like it’s not a place to be judged. It’s a place where you can, if you are there to have fun, you can have fun. If you are there to drown a sorrow, you can drown a sorrow. I used to sing in a church band when I was a teenager, and I got a house gig at a honky tonk three nights a week so I would get home at 4 am on Saturdays, and I would miss church sometimes. And I got judged for it a little bit because it’s like, “You’re hanging out in bars all night and you’re only 18.” Well the lost people aren’t at church. The lost people are on a barstool that just lost their wife or their husband just left them or they’re having a trouble in their life or they got laid off. Those are where the stories are. I’m a songwriter, I’m sorry but that’s where I want to be. And that’s where I feel at home because I can tell my own story. Whether it’s on the stage with a microphone or to the bartender. So even when I’m not sad or- I’ve spent many ugly nights in Midtown, believe me, for the wrong reasons, but I needed to be there at those times for those reasons. And now I am like- I still want to go to the same dive bar and hear the same George Strait song. Just because I am happy doesn’t that I don’t want to cry in my beer a little bit. Because that is country music. I’m lucky that nothing else was expected of me except to be me, and it’s resonated. I mean that doesn’t happen with every artist, sometime you have to change directions but I just am who I am and I don’t think I could change directions if I tried. So the fact that people have accepted me in every state and every phase is really a blessing. But I think it is because it is a reflection, we’re all that. It’s just who is willing to admit it or not. My whole career has a common theme. I think that confidence and honesty are two words that would come mind throughout the entire thread of my whole repertoire of music, [Pistol] Annies included. Vulnerability and a sharp edge a little bit. And this record has all of those things on it, just like every other record I’ve ever made.
Miranda Lambert Commentary on new album, Wildcard
“Wildcard”- I got this tattoo last October, and it was inspired by a line in one of my favorite songs I actually covered on one of my records. It’s an Emmylou Harris song. It was written by Susanna Clark and Carlene Carter, and it’s called “Easy From Now On.” A line in the song says, “When the morning comes and it’s time for me to leave, don’t worry about me. I’ve got a wildcard up my sleeve.” And I’ve always loved that song, and I’ve always loved that line. I just felt like something about my last three or four years’ journey as a woman—I feel like a wildcard is a queen of hearts to me, and that I need to be the queen of my own heart and make sure that I always remember that. So, I had this tattoo drawn up by this amazing guy named Kyle Miller in Oklahoma City. I went and got it, and then fast forward to writing for the record with Luke Dick and Natalie Hemby, and the line kind of came up again. “When the house keeps on winnin’, I got a wildcard up my sleeve,” because I do now, physically and spiritually. I wanted something- A word or a lyric from the record in the title, and I have this weird thing that every album I’ve put out that has a single word title has done really well. So now it’s like a superstitious thing. I have Kerosene and then Revolution. And those being some of the biggest records I’ve put out, I feel like I kind of wanted to go back to that. And Wildcard just felt right. It kind of explains where I’m at as a person. I mean, I’m worse than a wildcard sometimes. But I think you could always use that. You know, like, just always having something up your sleeve, whether that’s self-protection or a way to move forward or in any capacity that means to you, being able to step out of something and into something better. It’s kind of like pulling a wildcard out. And I’ve done it several times.
You know, it’s interesting when you’re writing for your first record, I mean I was eighteen when I first started writing songs, and I obviously didn’t have a lot of life that I had personally lived, but I had seen a lot already from my parents being private investigators and just the world around me and playing in honky tonks. But I would take a lot of inspiration from other things and other people, not necessarily just my eighteen-year-old self. And now seven albums later, I’m fortunately and unfortunately writing from my own experiences, which is a good thing sometimes, and sometimes it’s like, I had to live that to get that story. But it just shows you that it all comes out in the wash, and it’s ok at the end.
I’ve always been confident in who I am and what I do, but also going through something hard in your life will humble you and bring you back to the root of everything and you can rebuild. And I feel like this record is a journey of “We’re good! Everything is fine,” and “Everything is not fine, but it’s gonna be fine.” I’m ready for whatever life throws at me. I think we have to be that way, otherwise we just worry about things so much that we create issues in our own minds and our own lives. And I feel like I’ve let myself off the hook a little bit. Sometimes we need to. Just go, “You got this girl! You’re fine. Just be who you are and take it as it comes.”
I feel like this record- I came at it with the same confidence I guess, and hunker that I came at with Kerosene, which was over a decade ago. Like fourteen years ago, I put that out. But I feel like this record, of all of them that I’ve made, had the same energy and hopefulness to it with still a little bit of the gritty, scorned woman feel that is why I have a career. I feel like I balanced it really well on this record. But it still feels full-circle to me, back to the root of everything which was my first one.
Wildcard Intro and Outro Audio
