Miranda Lambert: all the guys love her and all the girls want to be her.
Recently I had the opportunity to meet Miranda when she opened for Kenny Chesney. My legs were like jelly while I was waiting in the photo line, and I realized I would need to have something to say when my turn came. I mean, yikes! What does a girl say to Miranda Lambert? "Hi, I like your hair. What products do you use?" That might work on some of the blondes currently gracing the country chart, but I don't think it would work with Miranda.
What I would have liked to say was, "I love that you do benefits for animal charities," and then go on to talk forever about dogs and my time working at a veterinary clinic and the animals I adopted. And maybe I'd sneak in something about the Twitter war between her boyfriend, Blake Shelton, and PETA ... or not. Or I could ask her how she got to be the spokesperson for Cotton and say how envious I am of her closet! And of course I'd ask if she got a free wardrobe out of it, 'cause her closet is jam-packed with brightly colored, cool-looking clothes. Maybe I would tell her how cool it was that she and Blake came to Rhapsody's Music Fest party in Nashville to support her Texas homeboy, Jack Ingram. And maybe, if all of that went well, I would tell her how much I love her music and what a joy it is to hear her songs on the radio. But no, I didn't get to do any of that.
Instead I mumbled, "Hi, I'm Linda. I'm the country music editor at Rhapsody," and before I could say anything else, the photographer snapped our picture and I was ushered on. Sigh. But I did get a cool picture (above) out of it.
Rhapsody has a seven-song "leak" of Miranda Lambert's new album, Revolution. The album includes both her recent hit "Dead Flowers" and her current smash, "White Liar,"
and we've got five other songs that are so damn fiery, they are sure to
be memorable. And each gives a little peek into the
personality of Miranda Lambert. Let's talk about those five songs track
by track.
"Only Prettier" is a raucous little number that
starts with the indelible line, "Well I've been saved by the grace of
Southern charm/ I've got a mouth like a sailor and yours is more like a
Hallmark card." I mean, how perfect is that, anyway? Hmmm … wonder who
the 100-pound, five-foot-three "enemy" she's talking about is? Carrie?
Kellie? Taylor? None of the above?
"Me and Your Cigarettes" is a gentle, chiming rocker
that compares the bad habits of smoking and being with the wrong
person as it lopes along in a sad, regretful way. There are some lines
in which the girl is wrong for the guy ("Your momma told you you could
end up dead with me/ Me and your cigarettes") and others that paint the
guy as someone who uses women and then tosses them away ("How's it
gonna feel when you come back around here and see/ It's just you and
your cigarettes"). The analogy here is priceless. When Miranda, who
co-wrote the song with Blake Shelton and Ashley Monroe,
sings, "Light us up and then throw us down/ Walk away when we hit the
ground" -- she nails the break-up right there.
"Sin for a Sin" is a song that would totally sound right at home on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend -- in fact, the way the chorus on this song and "Gunpowder and Lead"
build up are somewhat similar. It's a frenzied number about walking in on
someone … um … how to put it nicely ... in the middle of cheating. Contrast
Miranda sweetly singing, "I need to repent/ A sin for a sin" with the
next line, "... fire and brimstone/ Dirt and a headstone," and, well, you can
imagine the smoking intensity of this song.
"The House That Built Me" is a slow, quiet song
about coming back to the place where you grew up in order to find yourself again. A
conversation/therapy session between the singer the woman who now
occupies the house, "The House that Built Me" is a nostalgic,
bittersweet attempt at healing, and it's just lovely.
John Prine's original version of "That's the Way That the World Goes 'Round"
is a gentle country song marked by chiming guitars and a tin whistle. Miranda's version gets a punk-rock redo -- complete with feedback and
guitars to 11 -- and sounds like a beautiful mess. Of course, if you
are a strict John Prine fan, you might call this track sacrilege, but
something tells me Miranda Lambert would love that, too.
Check out the playlist below and hear our sneak peek tracks for yourself.
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
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