Last week, country superstar Miranda Lambert revealed her vulnerable side while hosting an episode of the CMA Songwriters Series for Front & Center. The singer shared a bit about her life throughout the night with performances of her most vulnerable songs alongside her co-writers (including her father). The night also celebrated her recent album, The Weight of These Wings, which was recently certified platinum.
She performed over half of the tracks from the double album The Weight of These Wings with several of her co-writers. As she brought them onstage, they recalled the memories of how the songs were written and the inspiration behind them. The country singer is known for her badass songs that show off her confidence as a woman, but this night was different. Instead, she shared vulnerable stories of her past hardships that inspired much of her recent music.
“This is a record that is very much a story about my last couple of years and everything you go through in life,” she stated, according to Sounds Like Nashville. “When you go through something in your life that’s really hard and you have the privilege and the blessing to be able to write songs, [you] use that to get you through it. Everybody that’s here tonight who’s a songwriter on this record completely embraced where I was whatever day that was. I was all over the map and these people were in the trenches with me.”
She sang the lead single off the album, “Vice,” with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally. All three contributed to the song, which openly talks about the hard times she has personally experienced. The song was actually written on the same day that news of her divorce broke out, July 20, 2015. McAnally admitted that he was in awe at how honest Lambert was in every lyric she produced during the writing session together for the emotional track. She really put her heart into it.
The audience could feel as if they were on the “magic porch” where Lambert wrote many of her songs. In fact, that is exactly how she wanted the night to feel. She got personal with the audience, refusing to leave out details from songs, despite most of them being written after her tough divorce from Blake Shelton. There’s a reason this album is a double album. Lambert wrote 72 songs, but these 24 reflect what needed to be said in order for her to heal the pain she went through.
Lambert admitted that she brought a cooler full of alcohol to the writing session, which surprised McAnally, but it was preparation for an incredibly heartfelt song. “When she showed up with, no just the roller cooler, but this vulnerability of, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s talk about this. Let’s write a song,’ I remember I kept looking at you and saying, ‘You’re not going to say that.’ And you said, ‘Yep,’ with every line. I don’t think you had gotten into the cooler yet.”
She chimed in at that point, saying she had already gotten into the cooler.
“I did get divorced in 2015 and I did start drinking a lot,” she said, according to People. “I did go to bars in Midtown…I had to pick up my car and it had been there three days. I still had mascara on from the first day. These gals came over and we were going to write a song and I had kind of written it on my way home from picking up my car. It was on a Monday.”
The night wasn’t all sad. She shared her happiness with the audience as well when she brought up her boyfriend of two years, Anderson East. Together, they performed the first song they wrote together called “Getaway Driver.” Lambert later admitted that one of the album’s love songs, “Pushin’ Time,” actually came about after she and East had a fight.
“It was all lovey-dovey, then we got in a fight because that’s how it always goes. I was pissed ’cause that is also how it goes,” she said, laughing. “He tried to smooth it over and I go, ‘Are you going to break up with me?’ And he goes, ‘I think I’ll wait 60 years.’ So sweet, right?” She definitely seems happier now that she got through the hard times and wrote an emotional record.
As the night came to an end, Lambert reminded the audience that she is thankful for where she is in her life now and the people that helped her get out of the trenches. She happily stated, “Music is medicine, it truly is.”
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