60 Songs That Explain the '90s - "The House That Built Me"— Miranda Lambert

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

This week, Rob shines a light on the many ways singer-songwriters have utilized the concept of the word ‘home’ to convey where the heart and the human spirit truly reside. These musings serve as a springboard for a thorough analysis of country superstar Miranda Lambert’s hit song from 2010 ‘The House That Built Me’, and the defiantly authentic discography that preceded it. He’s then joined by friend and culture writer Elamin Abdelmahmoud from CBC’s ‘The Commotion’ podcast to expound further on Lambert’s infectious Texas charm. Host: Rob HarvillaGuest: Elamin AbdelmahmoudProducer: Chris Sutton, Olivia Crerie, and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you had to pick just one album to define the 21st century so far, what would it be? I'm Cole Kushner from Dysect. And I'm Charles Holmes from The Midnight Boys. And on Tuesday, July 29th, Cole and I are launching season four of Last Song Standing. But this year, we're mixing things up. Instead of searching for an artist's greatest song, we're asking an even bigger question. What is the greatest album of the 21st century so far? Listen to Last Song Standing on the Dysect podcast feed or the Dysect YouTube channel starting Tuesday, July 29th.

Listen, I don't walk around with a definitive list in my head of my top five favorite songs of all time, despite what you may have heard from me on this very program pretty recently, when I announced definitively that my top five favorite songs of all time are as follows in no particular order. Kiss by Prince, let it be by the Beatles, When I Think of You by Janet Jackson, Birdhouse in Your Soul, by They Might Be Giants, and To Work It by Missy Elliott. That's a solid list. Hell yeah, that's legit.

Never mind. I stand by that. No, I don't. Listen, I don't walk around with a definitive list in my head of my top five favorite songs of all time. Okay, I got a list in my head at all times, yes. But the list ain't definitive. The list revises itself. arbitrarily, perpetually, subconsciously, my mood fluctuates.

I'm so changeable. New songs intrude. Not new songs necessarily. It's been ages since an actual new song threatened to crack my all-time list, though that new clip song about taking a Mike Tyson blow to the face is rocketing up the charts right now. That's a great song. No, see, by new songs, I mean old songs that I love dearly, but I make myself forget about them temporarily, just so I can hear them again as though they're new and I fall in love with them all over again.

That's the list in my head at all times. Let's say 75 to 100 songs all time where if I hear that song again in any context, I fall in love with that song all over again. And I say out loud, usually, regardless of circumstances, even if I am mid-conversation and that conversation is in no way related to the song. People think it's weird. It's not weird. It's normal. I say out loud, this might be my all-time favorite song.

Yeah, I got 100 to 250 songs like that. And often there is one specific line or even one specific word in that song that triggers it, that re-triggers me. I hear the song and I go, hmm. And then the song hits that one word and I go, oh yeah, this might be my all-time favorite song. And it's even cooler, I think. if that one specific trigger word is the very first word of the song. Home. This must be the place by Talking Heads from their 1983 album Speaking in Tongues.

Excuse me. The full song title is, this must be the place, parenthesis, naive melody, close parentheses. Also, excuse me, not this version, not the studio version, the speaking in tongues version of this song. No, it's got to be the live version of. this must be the place, parentheses, naive melody, close parentheses, which appears in the rapturously

received 1984 Talking Heads concert films, stop making sense, which is my favorite concert film of all time, even if that's somewhat of a normy opinion. Too bad. It's the vocal harmonies,

right, that make the live version of this must be the place superior, essential, definitive. The word home. The way Talking Heads frontman

David Burns sings the word home, the dazed yearning in his voice. That's more or less unchanged, but live. It's the vocal harmonies on the words is where I want to be. And most crucially on the words, I feel numb. Both the numbness and the extreme sensitivity, the profound, heartbreaking depth of uncontrollable feeling implied by the harmony right here on the words I feel numb. Both the abject loneliness and the heartwarming camaraderie of the voices intertwining here on the words I feel numb. I get to this line in this version of this song and I tear up instinctively. I burst out crying pretty much. It's not weird. It's normal. Shout out to the Stop Making Sense

backup singers Lynn Maybury and Edna Holt. There are some vocal harmonies in this part of the studio version of this must be the place, but that's David Byrne harmonizing with himself. And that ain't going to cut it. We need Lynn and Edna. We need their radiance. I feel numb just does it for me, man. The myriad dualities of I feel numb, the resignation and yet the resilience of I feel numb. The anxiety and yet the serenity of I feel numb. The stillness of the stop making sense version, too, the reverence, the relative quiet. Lin and Edna, are not just radiant backup singers, but radiant backup dancers. Think of all the buoyant choreography throughout Stop Making Sense,

all the playfulness, all the bopping around, all the running around. But during this must be the place, most of the band huddles together in one spot on stage and stays put and just chills out next to this super bright floor lamp. Right, the lamp. This must be the place is the Stop Making Sense song where David Byrne dances with a floor lamp for 30 seconds, during the keyboard solo at the end, he duets with a floor lamp. He lovingly caresses it and dips it

and twirls it around. And the duality's here, too, the weirdness and yet the gracefulness of the lamp dance, the absurdity and yet the beauty, this moment of unexpected cataclysmic holy communion between a rock star and a common household object. Yikes, I'm getting carried away. I'm getting all extra wordy rock critic on you. Sorry, the appeal of this song is way simpler than all that. Really, it's clear to me. It dawns on me yet again that this must be the place is one of my all-time favorite songs right from the first word, the word home. This must be the place makes transcendent worldview redefining use of the word home. Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there. I've heard of people using this must be the place as their wedding song as their first wedding dance.

And I always get super jealous. That's such a great pick. That's an elite first wedding dance. My wife and I, we almost used Queens. We Are the Champions as our first wedding dance. But then we chickened out and we used something by the Beatles instead. Something in the way she moves. And that song rules, obviously, but we still regret not doing We Are the Champions.

This came up again like last night. Our wedding was 18 years ago. the ingrained existential longing for home and the slow realization that home is not necessarily a physical place. Perhaps it's a state of mind or perhaps it's a person. What a perfect romantic love struck and gently baffled way to put it. I come home. She lifted up her wings. I guess that this must be the place.

The I guess really kills me there. The I guess gets me every time. Every part of this must be the place gets me every time. I guess. I guess I better move on. The word home gets me in pretty much any song now that I think about it. Country roads. Take me home to the plane yard. John Denver. Take me home, country roads. It's 1971. Yeah. Shout out John Denver for sneaking the comma into the song title.

I respect that. I confess that this didn't make my potential all-time favorite songs list until a couple years back when I was driving with my family through literally West Virginia. And my kids got super into the song and suddenly everybody was singing along and now it's on the list. The slight dip of to the place followed by the slight but triumphant assent of I belong. Sorry, that's the good shit. That's the good stuff. Sorry, kids. Don't talk like daddy. Is there a more powerful word in songwriting history than home? Perhaps you think of love, right, as the apex songwriting word. You think of love and or you and or baby, perhaps. But love is very arguably overused in pop songs. Love, the word, is all rung out. It's too cliched. It's too easy. As a songwriter, you got to work too

hard to restore any power, any poignance, any oomph to the word love. Whereas home is eternal, the uncut longing that radiates off the word home. Everyone belongs there. Everyone is begging someone to take them there. And everyone can't quite ever get there. Super Tramp. Take the long way home. 1979. The word home reduces anyone to tears, just by the physical act of singing it. Maybe that's the singular mystical power of anyone singing the word home. Yes, I mean anyone. Yes, I mean even Ozzy Osbourne. Mama comma, I'm coming home. I respect the comma. 1991. I thought of this song again, and this song made me sad again, right before Ozzy Osbourne died.

And now, of course, this song makes me even sadder, but there is triumph now in Mama I'm coming home as well, I suppose. He made it. Rest in peace, Ozzy Osbourne. I hope Heaven's got an alamo just for you. Mama is a great big, super-fraided, poignant pop song word also, but one word at a time, please. Counting Crows, Children in Bloom.

That's the name of the song, Children in Bloom. It's poetic. serious i love this song 1996 adam duritz imbues the word home with more super freighted poignant and intensity than the words love and you and mama combined counting crow's frontman adam duritz is totally done singing the word home in this song though of course i'm just kidding that's the good shit that's the even better shit children in bloom that's on my 250 possible all-time favorite songs list for sure so is this one do you know the these guys, American Music Club out of San Francisco, extremely rad, sad sack, bar stool, poet, alt rocker

dudes out of San Francisco, led by singer and songwriter and former Columbus, Ohio, and Mark Eitzel, made some great records in the 80s and 90s, and they broke up and then reunited in 2004 to put out a great reunion album called Love Songs for Patriots that peaks with a great song called Home. You should know these guys. You should know this song. You should know this song. central to the power, central to the paralyzing melancholy of the word home is this idea that even if you sing, let me come home or take me home or I'm coming home or whatever. What you really mean is what Mark Eitzel sings there. I hope I make it home. Just because you say take me home doesn't mean somebody will take you home. Just because you say mama, comma, I'm coming home doesn't mean you'll make it there.

So put this song called Home on the much longer list of songs that should be way more famous. And put this other song called Home on the also surprisingly long list of songs that are like 50 times more popular than I thought. Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zero's Home. 2009. 1,69,000,18,49,49,000,000,000,000,000, 96 plays on spot. Spotify when I checked it just now. Home is way more popular than I thought. Home is Primo, late 2000s, early 2010s, stomp and clap, ho hey, please don't wear a Native American headdress to Coachella Stadium Folk Excellence. This song deserves more critical respect, starting with me,

apparently. Sorry, let me come home. See, that's an intriguing. That's a sneakily devastating way to put it. Just because you sing, let me come home doesn't mean they'll let you. And even more intriguingly, home is wherever I'm with you. Talking heads knew that. Also, maybe home is not a physical place, but a person.

And I guess maybe you're already there. But even that idea has the sneaky potential to be totally devastating. Because it implies, devastatingly, that if the right person isn't there, you can make it home and still not be home.

Not a night goes by. The Dixie Chicks, now known simply as the Chicks. 2003, a home. This one's an all-timer, folks, and it's the tragic inverse of this must be the place by talking heads, right? As always, the Chicks' vocal harmonies are ridiculously immaculate. But even with three voices here, there's a vibe of overpowering loneliness, overpowering desolation. because if you're not there, this can't be the place. And the final masterstroke here is that the chicks illustrate the crucial and often crushing distinction between the words home and house.

The house that might have been a home. That is a devastating phrase. Devastatingly sung. Even if that phrase is not, by a long shot, a new phrase. The chicks did not invent this idea. Rather, the chicks here proudly join a proud house does not equal home lineage that also includes the likes of, oh, hey, awesome. It's Dionne Warwick. A chair is still a chair, even when there's no one sitting there.

Dionne Warwick. A House is Not a Home. 1964. This song was in a movie called A House is Not a Home. This song was written by Bert Baccarac and Hal David. This song is an all-timer and has been covered frequently. Most notably by, oh, hey, awesome. It's Luther Vandross. Better grab a hole to something. Tell him what a chair isn't, Luther. Luther Vandross. Covering a house is not a home. 1981. Luther sings with the sheer force, the triumphant desolation, and the all-time greatness of 50 other all-time great singers hitting 50 other high notes on 50 other all-time great songs simultaneously. Luther Vandross is an army of one. He is the loneliest army of one to ever storm the battlefield. But you know it's even lonelier than a house that's not a home because there's only one person in it? a house with zero people in it.

There's a house on my block. That's the abandoned and cold. The folks moved out of it a long time ago. Tom Waits. House where nobody lives. Off his genuinely incredible 1999 album, Mule Variations. If this is your very first time hearing Tom Waits's

voice, yes, he sounds like that on purpose. Whatever song, whatever era, however galactically craggy, Tom Waits's voice might sound at any given moment, he sounds like that on purpose and it's awesome. You'll see. And they took all their things and they never came back. It looks like it's haunted with And here, what makes Tom Waits' haunted house-ass voice so effective is that, yeah, obviously, he's the one haunting this house. The call is coming from inside the abandoned house. Tom's voice is rattling the walls and cracking the windows and vibrating the floors and sprinkling your head with dust from the ceiling. Actually, can we jump right to the part where Tom Waits sings the words and the weeds had grown up just as high as the door.

Listen to this shit. The weeds had grown up just as high as the door. I am truly startled every time by the terrifying and electrifying force with which Tom Waits sings those words. All the weeds in my front yard. I'll get to him. I'll get to him this weekend. I know. I know.

All the weeds in my front yard erupt and multiply and shoot up to door height when Tom Waits sings that. It's terrifying. It's like he's trying to blow the whole house down. Speaking of blow, oh my God. Every once in a while I go back to this video, this montage of Tom Waits going on grimy 70s talk shows and doing vintage David Letterman. and whatnot. And Tom's always smoking and or drinking on television. And he's saying things like,

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. And I've always maintained that reality is for people who can't face drugs. And I got to say that I really think Tom Waits would dig this new song by Virginia rap duo of the clips called Mike Tyson Blow to the Face. The screenwriters, we dream writers. Took chains and touched change like King Midas. imitation is flattery. They seem like us, but only 300 bricks can make you Leonidas. Yeah, man, only 300 bricks can make you Leonidas. I can totally imagine Tom Waits singing that line

in a piano ballad where it sounds like Tom built the piano himself out of dinosaur bones and then stuck all the leftover bones down his throat. That line is a reference to both ancient Greece and cocaine. Technically this clip song is called MTBTF, but those initials stand for Mike Tyson blow to the face. I figured that out. If you know, you know. The word home appears a couple times in this clip song actually, but it's in lines like the snow alone fill up a mobile home. By snow they mean cocaine. Anyways, Tom Waits, House where nobody lives is my all-time second favorite song with House in the title.

Everyone calls it the house, a house where nobody lives. Because there's an unnerving final frontier in this galaxy of songs about hoping you can go home, and songs about houses that are not homes, and songs about being home, but the person you love is gone, so it's not home anymore. And this is the unnerving final frontier. What if you're home, but you still feel like you're gone? What if you're the person who's missing? What if the person you're missing is yourself?

Her name is Miranda Lambert. She is a singer and songwriter and country music superstar originally from Longview, Texas. I don't think she uses it much these days, but she's got a microphone stand that's a shotgun or a long rifle or maybe it's just a very long shotgun. I would say that her microphone stand is shaped like a shotgun, but it's entirely possible that her microphone stand actually is a fully functional and loaded long shotgun. Also, I don't think you want to find out if it's real. I don't. Maybe just don't antagonize her.

And listen, we try to avoid hyperbole around here, but we got the hardest line in 21st century country music on deck. Miranda Lambert's going to sing the hardest line in 21st century country music. in like 20 seconds. Singing anything into a microphone attached to a microphone stand that possibly

doubles as literally a shotgun, that's pretty tough. That's pretty intimidating. That's pretty hard. But it ain't as hard as out here it's like I'm someone else.

I tear up instinctively. I burst out crying pretty much. Whenever I hear Miranda Lambert sing the words out here it's like I'm someone else

every song ever sung about home about leaving home about missing home about wanting to go back home about getting back home but the person you love ain't there so it ain't home anymore

it's just a house all those other classic and stirring and poignant and heartwarming and heartbreaking songs about home I forget all of them for a few seconds at least whenever I am once again confronted

by out here it's like I'm someone else Does out here mean anywhere that isn't home? Are you only really yourself when you're home? Are you someone else? Are you someone worse? Someone broken when you're anywhere other than home? Oof.

Sorry. I don't mean to get so emo about it. It's just that every time I hear Miranda Lambert sing that line, I get to thinking that this song is maybe even better than let it be by the Beatles. My name is I swear I'll leave Won't take nothing but a memory From the house then

My name is Rob Harvilla This is the 27th episode of 60 songs That Explained the 90s Col in the 2000s And this week we are discussing The House That Built Me By Miranda Lambert From her third album

Released in 2009 and called Revolution Geez Louise Let's bust out the old ad break before it gets any more emo in here. Sheesh. I hope that ad was for something frivolous and delightful and not at all emo. We got to liven it up around here.

We're calling in some reinforcements. We're calling in John Prine. I know a guy that's got a lot to lose. He's a pretty nice fella. Kind of confused. Got muscles in his head. Ain't never been used. Thanks he owns having this town.

John Prine, singer and songwriter and all-time American hero. John Prine, the pride of Maywood, Illinois. John Prine, the singing mailman. He actually worked as a mailman in the Chicago area before Roger Ebert, the Thumbs guy, before Roger Ebert came to one of his shows and wrote a glowing star-making review

in the Chicago Sun-Times in 1970 with the headline, Singing Mailman, who delivers a powerful message in a few words. And suddenly John Prine was a famous and beloved singer-songwriter and American hero for the rest of his life. John Prine, whom none other than Bob Dylan once described as follows, quote, Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism, Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. End quote.

John Prine, who there's a famous photo of Tom Wates, John Prine, and Bonnie Rate, hanging out backstage at the grand old opera in 1975. And I'm not saying America as a concept peaks with this photograph, but I'm not not saying it. John Prine, who put out a song in 1978 called That's the Way That the World Goes Round that starts off talking about the guy with muscles in his head ain't never been used.

Chorus. That's the way that the world goes round. We have one day. The next year down. I went to happen to water You think you're going to drown That's the way that the world goes wrong I went to see John Prine

Play at the Columbus Zoo In the early 2000s And it remains to this day One of the best concerts I've ever seen in my whole life While we're out here trying and failing To avoid hyperbole That's the first and only zoo concert

I've ever seen in my life And I refuse to go to any more zoo concerts Because I don't want to sully the memory of my John Prine zoo concert. That sounds like a joke, but I'm serious. I didn't know a whole lot about him at the time and I was spellbound.

You ever hear the John Prine song called Lake Marie? Oh man. And John Prine explained that night from the stage that some little kid came up to him once and asked him about the song

John wrote about the happy enchilada. And John was like, I don't, what are you? I don't have a song about a happy enchilada. And eventually, John realized that the kid misheard the line. It's half an inch of water and you think you're going to drown as happy enchilada and you think you're going to drown. And the whole crowd at the zoo

busted up laughing, myself included. I'm sure that shop-worn decades old John Prine stage banter, but he got us good. Two other quick things about John Prine at the zoo. Number one, that show was on a Friday night and I knew that my buddy Dan was getting married the next day on Saturday. And so the whole show, I'm thinking, man, this concert is incredible. I love this guy. I'm a John Prine head for life now. And plus, I get to go to Dan's wedding tomorrow. This weekend rules. And then right after the show, I called Dan to ask him when his wedding started. That's insane, by the way, obviously, don't do that. Don't be that guy. Don't be like me. Don't call your friend. Like, call him on the phone the night before his wedding to ask him what time his wedding starts.

That's insane. I know that now. okay but I called Dan to ask him what time his wedding starts tomorrow and he answers his phone while he and his new wife are loading their wedding presents into the trunk of their car because the wedding wasn't tomorrow it wasn't Saturday it was tonight it was Friday night and it had just happened and I missed it because I was at the John Prine concert at the zoo and Dan and his new wife both laughed at me I'd say that's a remarkably John Prine-esque way for me to end my evening at the John Prine concert. Speaking of muscles in my head that ain't never been used. The other quicker thing about John Prine at the zoo is that I got to interview John Prine over the phone in 2018. Just a few years

before he passed, John Prine died on April 7, 2020 of COVID-19. He was 73 and he was the best. And I told John about seeing him at the Columbus Zoo. And I told him it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. And he said, well, thank you. I remember that gig. When it comes to zoo gigs, that was one of the nicer ones. And I said, what's a not nice zoo gig like? And John Prine goes, you're in the middle of a fucking zoo.

Yeah, so Miranda Lambert does a rad cover of the happy enchilada song. Get a load of the sauce. She's about to put on the word town. Here we have Miranda Lambert's cover of John Prine's. That's the way that the world goes around. which also appears on her 2009 album called Revolution.

Notice that Miranda changes the gender. Notice that she knows a gal. She knows a pretty nice lady who's got muscles in her head. Ain't never been used. But yeah, also notice the truly stupendous relish with which Miranda Lambert sings the line think she owns half of this town, the venomous gleeful snap of the word town,

firing out of her mouth. You got to grow up in a small town to sing the word town with that much shrewd, vicious backspin. John Prine has been endlessly described by everyone, probably by me at some point, as your favorite singers, favorite singer, your favorite songwriters, favorite songwriter, etc. This construction is such a cliche that Stephen Colbert once interviewed John Prine and asked, were you a mailman's mailman? Another time Stephen Colbert and John Prine actually sang a duet on that's the way that the world

goes around. It was super weird and also really nice. But among songwriters, and Nashville's songwriters in particular, country and folk songwriters, John Prine is the gold standard. He's the apex. He's the guy you love and the guy you want to love you. So Miranda Lambert's mainstream country superstar is covering John Prine in 2009 on a mainstream country superstar album because she's got exquisite taste. And she turns that John Prine's song into a country punk mosh pit throwdown because just because you've got exquisite taste doesn't mean that you don't also kick ass. So this is who we're dealing with today.

This is the gal. This is the pretty nice lady who writes and sings and generally conveys herself like she's using every muscle in her head all the time. Miranda Lambert was born in Longview, Texas in November 10, 1983. She was raised in nearby Lindale, Texas, a 45-minute drive east, according to Google Maps. Don't at me. At one point her parents, Rick and Bev both worked as private investigators, and they'd take their daughter, Miranda, out on stakeouts and whatnot. Also, Rick and Bev were once hired by an Arkansas state employee named Paula Jones to investigate, help substantiate

Paula's sexual harassment allegations against former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, who was by then, president of the United States, Bill Clinton. And that's a rich text culturally, sociopolitically, but I don't want anything to do with it if you want the truth. In 2001, the year she turned 18, Miranda Lambert self-released her debut album called Miranda Lambert. And this self-titled record is not canon per se. It is not officially streaming or generally much acknowledged. And so it's the sort of deal where you can find it on YouTube, but you can't be 100% sure it's legit, right? Maybe it's mislabeled.

Maybe it's a prank. Maybe it's a deep fake. I don't know. Let's try it though. Let's hear a song called Texas as hell, even if maybe it isn't really her. No, that's her. That's definitely her. Every part of that is very obviously her.

Cool. Ain't nobody else. else going to sing the words Texas, hell, mean, ornery, and a loudmouth with that kind of panache. Famously, in 2003, Miranda Lambert competed on the first season of the televised singing competition, Nashville Star, which premiered and mostly stayed on the USA Network, and which was unambiguously country music American Idol, right? Would you like to hear Miranda Lambert on Nashville Star, belting out Hurts So Good

by John Coor-Mellon Camp sure you would if this is a deep fake that I'm super impressed and it clearly costs somebody several million dollars I feel like you can hear Miranda Lambert's eyebrows

there the star making all-knowing mean and ornery arch of her eyebrows infamously Miranda Lambert did not win

the first season of Nashville star Miranda Lambert finished third. And not to be rude, but Nashville Star went six season and crowned six winners. And yet the two most famous singers to emerge from this program by several orders of magnitude are Miranda Lambert and later Casey Musgraves. Speaking of young country superstars with major John Prine energy. Casey Musgraves didn't win Nashville Star either. She finished seventh, which is hilarious.

I feel rude disparaging the actual winners of this program. This dude Chris Young won season four of Nashville Star in 2006, and Chris has gone on to a respectable and relatively not obnoxious bro country type career. If you don't mind deep voiced dudes coming on to you and trying to drive you down a dirt road and hump you in the bed of their truck, that is unnecessarily coarse, that image, even if it is semi-accurate. That's even ruder. Shit. Miranda Lambert did not want to win Nashville Star. She was very glad. She did not win.

The great Nashville author and critic and friend of the program, Marissa R. Moss, she published a fantastic book in 2022 called Her Country, How the Women of Country Music became the success they were never supposed to be. And Marissa describes Miranda's state of mind during the Nashville star finale. Quote, so she didn't cry when it was announced on the finale that she'd come in third. Instead, she mouthed to her parents, sitting in the audience, a hearty, excited, yes. Losing meant that Miranda didn't have to be beholden to work with a certain producer, a certain mixer, a certain engineer. It meant that no one owned her choices but her gut, and that she could mold her career exactly how she wanted to.

And that's precisely what she did. End quote. It's the Kelly Clarkson thing. if you were around for that conversation. The bad news when Kelly Clarkson won, season one of American Idol, is that she had to do everything American Idol told her to do for a while, or at least that's what was expected of her. Instead, freed from the prison of victory, Miranda starts talking to labels.

And per the her country book, as Miranda later explained it to NPR, she said, quote, I told everybody, I'd rather spend another decade in honky tonks and do it my way then be the pretty girl for you end quote in march 2005 miranda lambert released her debut album officially this time it is called kerosene in the video for the song called kerosene she carries around a gas can the whole time and burns her house down Miranda wrote kerosene pretty much herself, but as you may have observed, that song sounds so much like Steve Earle, raucous, righteous, super loudmouth, electric guitar-loving outlaw icon,

Steve Earle, your favorite country singer-songwriter's other favorite singer-songwriter, Steve Earle? That song sounds so much like him that Miranda gave Steve Earle a co-writing credit. Now, as you may have also observed, country music and mainstream Nashville machine, country music in particular, is fixated on home, fixated on the house as home or the house as not home, fixated on the small town as home. But even if pretty much everybody out of Nashville is singing about home pretty much all the time, it's still striking to me how immediately Miranda Lambert's songs can all be plotted on a straight line, on a highway, perhaps, stretching out infinitely between home and away from home. So on kerosene, the

album kerosene the song is track one here's track two this song's called what about georgia and the internet would like me to believe that it's a diss song miranda wrote about a hapless fellow nashville star contestant and brief love interest who wrote a mean dis song about her whilst abandoning his small town roots in search of fame and fortune and probably the internet's right about that But the line, you took a little piece of home and you threw away the rest, is cutting and ornery and excellent enough to not require really any context at all. Let's keep going. Let's keep leaving. Track three, in fact, is called Greyhound Bound for Nowhere.

I dig the angelic ooze in the background during this chorus very much. Miranda herself is the one leaving this time. I do believe she is the other woman in this particular heartbreaking love triangle. But if it's any consolation to her, the accordion is also excellent here. Not to mention the way Miranda sings the word

nowhere. I swear I wasn't thinking about him anymore, but I just accidentally stumbled across another Tom Wait's quote, where he supposedly said, a gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn't. And then on purpose, I found a blog post from someone really angrily insisting that

Tom Waits didn't really say that. Leave it alone, Rob. All right, track four is called New Strings. And not only is Miranda once again the one leaving home, she's the one packing up the good and leaving the rest. Maybe it's slightly reductive to say that true country music superstardom is the ability to sing a vaguely familiar line like I'll grab the wheel and I'll point it west with so much charisma, so much fervor, so much self-belief that it sounds like a line you've never heard before in your life, not even vaguely. But that's what Miranda Lambert just did. And she's about to do it again right now with the line, I've got everything I ever need. I do not necessarily believe every singer who's ever conveyed that particular sentiment in so many words or in those

exact words. But I believe her. And really, the outrageous appeal of Miranda Lambert is just that simple. You can't put it any simpler than she just put it. I got this old guitar and a brand new set of strings. She is in the lineage. She is walking the line. She is pointing her steering wheel down the decades-long highway of classic country stars. With all the dualities, classic country superstardom implies, the toughness and the vulnerability,

the fieriness and the ultra-coolness. the leaving home and the longing for home. She is in a mode you recognize immediately. She is a personal vibe, a vocal and a lyrical and a personality-based tone that you will also forever recognize immediately as her and her alone. So every Miranda Lambert song you hear from here on out, you go, yep, that's her. That's definitely her. Every part of that is very obviously her.

My personal favorite song on this first Miranda record is called I Want to Die. Let's make it up, baby Because I'm up for me, darling I want to die Partly it's the line If you're the death of me, darling, I want to die, right? That's an instant classic country music line But mostly it's the baseline there

The do do do do do do It took me forever to figure out Why I responded so strongly to this And then finally I figured it out Oh yeah, right It reminds me of the talking heads Covering Al Green's Take Me to the river.

The live version, the Stop Making Sense version of Talking Heads covering Al Greens, Take Me to the River, obviously. Obviously. All right. Kerosene goes platinum. Kerosene eventually sells a million copies. Kerosene hits number one on the Billboard country albums chart. Cool, cool.

Great start. But we're aiming higher now. We're aiming farther down the mythic highway. If the whole point here is to breathe galvanizing new life, into country music archetypes, why not just go ahead and call the second official Miranda Lambert album Crazy X Girlfriend?

County Road 233 Under my feet Nothing on that's a wide rock But a little old me You just sat up or stood up a little straighter Your eyes just opened a little wider A little thunderbolt shot through your whole body just now when Miranda Lambert spit out the words

County Road 233. No? And this is not only a country music skill, right? The way the vicious, glorious snap in her voice makes the ultra-specificity of County Road 233 feel immediately permanently universal. But when somebody nails that specific to universal transformation perfectly,

you believe that it's exclusively a country music skill. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend comes out in 2007. We've moved on. We've moved up from kerosene in terms of intensity and, you know, weaponry. This song's called Gunpowder and Lead. And now, see, there's an actual song called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Miranda's second official record, released in 2007 and called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, in which, in essence, Miranda starts a fun bar fight with her ex-in-his and his new

girlfriend, but the word crazy here helps describe a far graver situation. I'll admit this chorus blew right by me a few times before I fully realized that right here Miranda sings, he slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll. Don't that sound like a real man. And here is where Miranda's shotgun microphone stand era begins in earnest. Spiritually, if not literally, though maybe literally. You can hear gunpowder. and led as part of a famous country music lineage of its own. In its depiction of revenge, of domestic turmoil, of domestic violence, this song is arguably the Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks from the woman's perspective, the Thunder Rolls video, I should specify, which is a great deal gnarlier and more upsetting in its depiction of domestic turmoil and domestic violence than the song itself is lyrically.

But Miranda also has a far more direct and personal connection to these issues. In an interview with The Guardian in 2016, Miranda talked about her parents, working as private investigators and often investigating cases that involve domestic violence and often taking in, sheltering women and children who were victims of domestic violence. Miranda said, quote, I had mom making cookies after school, and I also had moms whose partners were beating the crap out of them. Gunpowder and lead was in my household for a long time. End quote. Best songs can be exaggerated. The guns, the pyro, the wailing background singers, the arena-sized grandeur. But just because they're exaggerated doesn't mean they're not describing something terribly, viscerally real. That, too, is not an idea exclusive to country music, but with the very best songs, it feels exclusive to country music.

As for lyrical concepts that are more or less exclusive to country music, another really great song on this crazy ex-girlfriend record is called Famous in a Small Town. Famous in a Small Town is upbeat and anthemic and neutral to outright positive on the subject of living in a small town and the gentle Panopticon nature of every grandma-in-law and ex-girlfriend knowing you a little too well. There are approximately 200 billion country songs about living in a small town. And in my experience, the harder any one small town song works to convince you that living in a small town is the best and the coolest and maybe even the noblest, the less convincing that song is. And so I dig the matter-of-factness of Miranda Lambert

here. She's on her second album. She's got a couple dozen well-known songs to her name. And she's already nonetheless got a ton of songs about leaving home. But even the songs where she explicitly leaves her abiding love of home is always just as explicit. Everybody dies famous in a small town. The way she sings it, it's not a complaint, and it's not a boast either. It's just a fact. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hits number six on the Billboard album chart. Miranda Lambert is firmly always a country star, but now she's a much bigger one.

And she's the threat to maybe one day be the biggest. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend also hits number 15 on the 2007 edition of the Village Voices, Big Pazenjop year-end rock critics poll, which I was attempting to help run at the time, a terrifying and overwhelmingly and life-shortening experience. I'd prefer you not ask me about ever. The point is that critics, rock critics, are getting big into Miranda Lambert. Country stars crossing over to pop stardom is one thing. Country stars crossing over to widespread, thoughtful, critical acclaim is another, arguably rarer thing.

Don't worry too much about any of that, though. The third official Miranda Lambert album is released in 2009. It is called Revolution. It includes many fine, many excellent songs. A very funny song called Only Prittier, and a very sad and heartbroken song called Dead Flowers, and a very chaotic and delightful John Prine cover, if I recall correctly. But this is one of these country records with one song so good, it kind of sort of breaks the rest of the record in half.

It kind of sort of breaks me in half. I know they say you can't go home again. I just had to come back one last time. Okay, as a brief, indulgent programming note, I meant to do the Miranda Lambert episode. I meant to do the house that built me last week. But I started out thinking and writing about the Tim McGraw song, Live Like You Were Dying.

And I got to thinking about my father-in-law, Jim, who passed, who we lost in April after a long illness. And I spun out a little bit, and I just hyper-fixated on Live Like You Were Dying and how it made me think of Jim. And then I bailed. I made a snap decision that Live Like You Were Dying made more sense as its own shorter, more constant.

traded thing without a bunch of other songs and cultural ephemera and random tomfoolery diluting it or him but so i talked last week about meeting jim for the very first time meeting my girlfriend and future wife's father for the first time in his house in his living room rising from his chair and just the serenity the ease the warmth the homeness radiating off of jim the very first time i shook his hand right before he started telling me about how he'd pull the tails of the squirrels in his backyard to establish dominance. And so the house that built me makes me think of Jim too. Like I walked into his house thinking, well, this was Jim's house. And I shook his hand and in that instant, I realized, no, this is Jim's home.

And that alchemy is not available to Miranda Lambert here, in part because the house that built me is in the past tent. It's not her house anymore. She's here one last time. She is singing this song, in fact, to the current occupant of the house. It's someone else's home now. Or at least we hope this house feels to this woman now the way it felt to Miranda then. Ma'am, I know you don't know me from Adam.

These handprints on the front steps are mine. And the video for this song adds one subtle but crucial detail. The house that built me video starts with Miranda Lambert's tour bus pulling up to the house. And Miranda gets off the bus and she walks around and she knocks on the front door of the house and she tossed to the lady who answers the door and lives there now. And then Miranda walks around inside the house and looks sad. The tour bus is the subtle but crucial detail. It reminds us that Miranda Lambert is a superstar now.

And specifically, she is a country music superstar with hit songs about, small towns about living in them and leaving them and maybe occasionally returning to them. In the song itself, in the lyrics to the song itself, the only real nod to Miranda Lambert's superstardom is the line about her learning to play guitar. Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar. The Little Bend and Miranda's voice there on the words Little Back Bedroom, that's the sort of grace note that transforms the great songs into the all-time great songs. The House That Built Me was written by Tom Douglas and Alan Shamblin.

And according to the internet, this was originally intended for Blake Shelton, country superstar and jovial loudmouth bro Blake Shelton, to whom Miranda Lambert was married from 2011 to 2015. Miranda heard that. song and wanted it for herself and she got it for herself and when he's not rapping or generally overdoing it blake shelton's got his moments all things in moderation but i'll tell you this i am grateful for so many things in this life and so many more important things but i am now additionally grateful that i get to hear miranda lambert singing this song and not blake shelton not to be rude Here comes the line about the dog.

This is a tough one, but toughness. In the right hands, in her hands, sheesh, thank you, I'm eternally grateful. In Miranda Lambert's hands, the toughness only further bolsters the greatness. I bet you didn't know under that live oak. My favorite dog is buried in the yard.

It's the barely perceptible brightness in her voice on I'll bet you didn't know the split second blip of elation you get when you tell someone a secret, even that secret. And then Miranda sings the line. The line that I think about, that I fixate on often,

not daily, but often. Still, the weapons grade country superstar pathos, she pours into this one line. Out here is... I think about out here, it's like I'm someone else a lot. The tour of...

bust in the video matters to me because it reframes the house that built me as a rock star worn down by the road song in the grand tradition of what bob seger's turn the page or metallic's turn the page or the ramones i want to be sedated or neil young's for the turnstiles etc the someone else and out here it's like i'm someone else becomes miranda lambert country superstar i have watched Miranda Lambert sing this song in a packed hockey arena. But when I'm just listening to the song by myself and tearing up again, I don't want the tour bus. I want to interpret out here. It's like I'm someone else as broadly as possible. I want to consider the argument that this statement applies to everyone. And out here refers to any place that is not home. You, any of you, all of you,

all of us. We are, all of us, not ourselves when we are not home. Or at the very least, we are performing the role of someone else when we are not home. And a house can build us, but when we leave it, it ceases to be home, even if we return to it. It's getting super emo in here again. Sorry, but sometimes that's the gig. Bridge. And as a final transcendent crowning glory here, What makes the bridge great is that I do not believe Miranda Lambert when she sings it. She is believable insofar as she is Miranda Lambert, country superstar, and she can make any line believable. What makes her, Miranda Lambert, country superstar, is that she has clearly, audibly, never forgotten who she is. This goes beyond the simple, reductive, tired old question of authenticity.

She has a voice that makes you go, yep, that's her. It's definitely her. Every part of that is very obviously her every time you hear it. That's all. The house built her. The house is not her home anymore. She struggles sometimes, often, to find home again, as do we all, of course. But we have her.

Home is where we want to be. But I guess we're already there. We come home. she lifted up her wings. I guess that this must be the place. We are thrilled to be joined once again by our close personal friend. The great Elamine Abdel Mahmoud, host of the commotion podcast, author of the memoir, son of elsewhere, proud Canadian and even prouder Miranda Lambert fan.

Alamein, it's great to talk to you again. Rob Harvilla, we are so back. We are so back, man. The thrill of him, Harvilla, as they say, right? That's what they say. They say it all the time. I got a piece of mail once addressed to Rob Harzilla. That was probably a queer highlight for me.

I should have kept that. Harzilla. You should have kept that. I should have kept that. That's on me. Elime, we were chatting and you described Miranda Lambert to me as the patron saint of the unmoored, which is a phrase I immediately really gravitated toward. Can you explain to the people what makes Miranda Lambert the person?

patron saint of the unmoored. The problem, Rob, is when you say things, then people go, what do you mean? You know, and then you got to say more words about that. And you know what? I'm glad that we're doing it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Look, I think what I meant by that is there's a very subtle, almost imperceptible shift in Miranda Lambert's approach to songwriting, and what I get out of Miranda Lambert, which is like a Miranda song is like not interested in resolution, you know? I feel like so much country music deals with these difficult emotions. It's about describing how difficult moving through a feeling is. And Miranda's like, no, no, no, we are sitting in this, even if it's morally compromising, even if it feels bad. And I think, like, to me, the best Miranda songs, they don't have a resolution.

They're just like this, like, it's like a photograph of a hard place. And I think that makes her, to me, more trustworthy. You know what I mean? I think that's what I'm reacting to. I see. She doesn't offer resolution, as you say. She's languishing, you know, she's luxuriating in her loudness. What are the songs that do that for you? I'm trying to think, like, is that craziest girlfriend? Is that gunpowder and lead? Like, what are the songs that stick with a bad feeling and see it all the way through? Well, I certainly try to think about, like, you know, the single most public moment of Miranda Lambert's life, you know, actually, this is a highly anticipated album that she's going to release after a highly publicized divorce from, you know who. who shall not be named on this podcast. She comes up with the album.

I won't do it, right? I won't do it. Okay, I respected. She comes out with this album, you know, the weight of these wings. And listen, that album has a song called Tin Man. It is a top three Miranda song of all time. But, you know, even though she has Tin Man on this record,

it's not the first or even second single. The first song on there is, the first single that she comes out with is a song called Vice, which is like a song about being like, I probably shouldn't be waking up in this bed, but I am probably going to also do it again. And I think there's something fundamentally more trustworthy about someone who does that. Like someone says, hey, I'm in a hard place. And when you're a hard place, like, you want to hear someone say, whoa, look at what this hard place and what it tells us about ourselves, as opposed to someone who's like, can't wait to be out of here.

You know, I think she revels in the messiness of being human. And I love that so much about her. Right. because not to generalize, but like the best country songs are about, you know, reveling in bad behavior, bad feelings,

you know, trying to get through it, but probably not in the space of the song. Like, is Miranda especially skilled at being someone you root for even when she's at her worst? Yeah,

I think so. And I think the thing that makes her particularly skilled in that, like, there are people who write from this sober perspective, you know, like here I am a polished person

who knows they shouldn't have done this thing perspective. And I automatically am like, I don't trust, you get the fuck out of here. And the reason I think that is because what I think of Miranda Lambert's song says, we make impulsive decisions, we make decisions we know are bad for us. And if someone asks, hey, are you sure about this?

The answer is immediately like, no, I'm not sure about this. But it's still the decision. And she's able to tap into that place. She's able to sort of like communicate from that place where she's like, I actually am not sure of him entirely worthy of moral redemption at the moment, but this is what it feels like to be in this place. and the greats do that. Like Lucinda does that.

Gillian Welch does that. Like the people who are able to say, here I am in all my messiness, can we hang out? I go, yeah, man, pull up a chair. Let's talk about it. We totally can.

The untrustworthiness is part of that interests me because you describe Miranda to me as honest, you know, which is an overused sort of rock critic descriptive word. You know, like what makes a country star seem especially honest to you? What makes Miranda Bill Lambert seem honest to you, especially.

I think if you have been a fan of country music for some time, then you are aware that at least for any artists that you have heard of, who emerges out of Nashville or out of the Nashville machine, that like behind them there is an army, and behind them there is a staff, and there are people who are a part of the songwriting process. And the job is to sound believable, even when you're in the middle of all of that.

Or like you're at least like in charge of orchestrating all that. And I think like the contrast is, you know, Carrie Underwood, for example, has this, it's a song, but it's also an album title called Cry Pretty. And you listen to that song and you go, I don't think I believe you. And I like that song.

I like, I genuinely like the song Cry Pretty. It's a Carrie Underwood joint. It's a Lori McKinna and Liz Rose joint. Like we're talking about like heavy hip. into the songwriting. But it doesn't land because what I can't get past is the veneer of the people that it took

to ferry the song to me. Whereas Miranda, maybe something about the voice, something about how early she had to start, doing three hours a night in front of honky tonks in Texas, where if they don't believe you, they're going to be like, please get off the stage. I think it gives you that sense of polish of being able to tap into an emotion

and deliver it a bit more honestly, more directly. And she has that, regardless of whether the song is like, you know, this sort of like big, raucous song or like something quiet and introspective. Yeah. Carrie's interesting, because I was thinking about Miranda's crazy ex-girlfriends compared to Carrie's before he cheats, right? Like they're both, you know, cheating boyfriend's, you know,

revenge fantasies, you know, I'm going to kick your ass, blow up your truck. whatever, but I think what made before he cheats so effective for Carrie is that it played against her image, right? Her sort of sweetheart American Idol image. Does Miranda generally sound a little

more convincingly sort of dangerous to you in that crazy ex-girlfriend mode compared to your average country star? I think the notion that Carrie Anud was going to take a Louisville slugger to both headlights felt out of reach,

right? Like you listen to that and go like, That seems unlikely. You know, like we can sing along to the song in karaoke and there's something a bit more safe about this, a bit more safe about this. But I think with Miranda, there's something inherently, I think, a little bit unpredictable about her.

You know, there's something about Miranda Lambert that when you listen to those songs, they listen to her voice, there's an edge to her persona. An edge that says, actually, yes, I'm a part of this machine, but I'm reluctantly a part of this machine. And you know what? I could take it or leave it.

And that automatically makes you kind of root for her a little bit more. You know, I think like she's someone who, when I think about the songs and the place that she got to, like, we got to remember Miranda never really had the trust of radio that much. And radio is, you know, a gigantic kingmaker when it comes to country music. But radio has kind of reluctantly come along to Miranda, but like it wasn't like they wanted to. They were more so, you know, kicking and screaming coming to Miranda than they were anything else. Yeah. Because I, what fascinates me about her is that she's both inside and outside, right? Like, she's a huge country star, you know, she wins major awards, you know, but Miranda always seems at the same time just a little bit out of the Nashville machine, you know.

And I think of someone like Eric Church in the same vein, you know, where they're an insider, they're a superstar, you know, they fill arenas. like they're in Nashville blessed major artist, but they still have just enough, you know, edge or however you want to put it, to still convincingly, like, call an album the outsiders, refer to themselves as outsiders. Like, what is it about Miranda, do you think, that allows her to be, you know,

both part of the machine and apart from it at all times, even at her biggest? I think part of that is lore, right? Part of that is lore and mythology, which is to say that this is someone who, you know, had the opportunity to, win a reality show that was like American Idol, but specifically for country music. And as she gets to the final three, you know, and the day that she's voted off, she moutes

yes to her parents because she's like, thank God, I don't have to go through this process. Thank God I don't have to be whatever this thing, you know, ends up making me. And I think that like automatically starts her on the right foot of saying, oh, this is somebody who wants to write her songs, wants to sort of like have a bit more control over her career. because like I don't remember who won that year and nor do I want to. Like, nor do I want to be reminded of who won that year. It's like doesn't feel significant to me.

I think like there's something about Miranda that has always kind of felt in charge of wherever her career goes. And like sometimes she has made these decisions that I think confound a someone who comes out of that machine. And what I mean by that is like, for the record, her album, comes out the same year that the Pills, Pistol Annie's first album comes out.

That's Pistol Annie's her side project with Angelina Presley and Ashley Moore, Ashley Monroe. And there is something endlessly fascinating about, you know, if you want to learn something about an artist, look at what they do when they're at the height of their career. Look at the choices that they make in those moments. To me, the idea that she's like, yeah, but I want to do this. I want to do this, you know, singer-songwriter project, this project that is like about, you know, I've written songs with these people, I enjoy their songwriting, and I really like, like our energy together.

The idea that you would, you know, take up some of the airspace that you get, you're trying to promote your album. And you're like, no, but I also want to talk with the Pistolannies and the fact that I have this record with these people. That tells me something where your allegiance is lie, which is like with the songwriting,

with a place that kind of made you. And there is, fundamentally, that's incredibly Texas, right? Like, that's an incredibly Texas thing to do. I think, like, the Texasness of her career is so important because, in country music lore

Texas is like where you go when you're not a Nashville person, you know? The Willie Nelson. Exactly. And when I think about even like the Texas the Texas people now, like Casey Musgraves, inside Nashville but also outside Nashville. Right? Miranda's similar deal.

Exactly. Exactly right. And there is, you get this air of credibility, I think, if you can pull it off right. But that's not an easy thing to pull off right. Yeah. In the very early, Miranda records, I hear a lot of the chicks, the Dixie Chicks, you know, and that's, again,

that's Texas. Again, that's sort of Texas dragging, you know, country radio, Nashville along with it. You know, I don't think Nashville went willingly to the Chicks experience, but they had to, and it's the same thing you're describing with Miranda. Exactly right. Exactly right. I think, like, there's a forcefulness to the energy that comes out of something that's standing outside of the machine and saying, no, country music doesn't have to only be that. It could be something else. And I think, like, Miranda looks a different part. Like, I think, like, that's the thing that's compelling about Miranda is that she looks like she could just kind of play the sort of produced by the Nashville machine person.

But she's rebellious in her nature in the same ways that, like, I think of other Texas musicians who sort of made Nashville to change and correct course. And I'm talking, like, to me, like, she's a combination of, like, Steve Earl and Beyonce. say. Like, the idea of like, you do, right, like, you, you, you turn out of the lane and you say, I'm sticking to this lane. Take it or leave it. And then eventually Nashville's like, we'll take it because it's actually pretty good. Sure, sure. I really like, you know a lot about a star from what they do at their height, the choices they make. That's a really cool framing. Because I love the Pistol Lanny's record, right? As much as I love for the record. You know, I, and that's, you know,

I want to make a record with my friends, you know, the same year as my blockbuster her fourth album. That's a very cool decision. And like you say, that shows you who she is and who she cares about. She could have done anything in that moment. Or she could have freed her entire year to say, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, it's going to be a long promotional run ahead of this album. And instead, no, she's like, I got these friends and we write songs together. And to me, her allegiances to songwriting have put her in rooms where people don't necessarily expect her to be. And I like love that subversiveness about her. When did you first get into her?

Because her second record, crazy-ex girlfriend, like I remember that being a major sort of critical success, like critics, polls, like things of that nature, right? Like, what was your personal relationship with country music when you first got into Miranda Lambert? Well, I got to tell you, I'm a shame to admit, but also happy to admit that for the longest time, I was one of those people that I listen to everything but country music,

which is a real shameful sentence, you know? That's how you say that. That's the voice you always. after you is when you make that specific statement. You nailed the tone. I'll listen to everything. There it is. Nail it.

Which like, I don't, I, I've tried to return to that self a lot, man. Like, the self is like, I listen to all these things, but this thing would say something about me and therefore I'm staying away from him. Like, what is that thing? And I've tried to sort of like mind this idea of like when you have a relationship where you go, oh, I'm defying myself by being against something. Because, of course, it's silly. I got into country music way later.

Like, country music for me is something that maybe started 2014, 2015. So I was a full-blown adult, you know, by the time that I finally arrived at country music. And what I found was music that was very reminiscent of Sudan and Sudanese music. That's what got me into it in the first place. and by that I mean music that is like very specifically about a place about a place very invested in painting a place with rich colors and saying we don't want to talk about anywhere else we want to share we just want to talk about the contours of this place and I think like the house that built me becomes the introduction to that because that's that's where I first

fell in love with Miranda and what a song to sort of you know start your entry point into someone's career. Of course. I was going to ask you like this, I love tons of Miranda songs, but House that Built Me Towers above all of them and above like any country song from this decade. So like to start there with her is, is wild. Like I'm interested in the idea that it connects to Sudanese music. Like what do you hear in that music that then connects to the house that built me? Just the description of like a physical place, of like a metaphysical place you're trying to get back to? Like, what is that connection? Yeah. So I think like when I,

so I came to Canada when I was 12 years old and I was instantly horrified by hip hop because I grew up in a conservative Muslim household. And I was like, they're doing what? I can't do any of that. And I did what

every teenager does, which I was like, oh, I will listen to new metal. That seems safe. You know? And the jury sort of went, It was a road. It was a road one can take. Yeah.

A big sigh. I can't wait for the disturbed episode, Rob. I'm working on it. I'm gathering string for disturbed. This isn't either here nor there. But I do think that for me, like the path went from new metal to just generally pop music. And then when I was sort of. like began to miss Sudan and what Sudanese music does.

Sudanese music is so rooted in like the Nile and in nature and the trees and the roses and very specifically like how a place shapes you. And that was my pathway to country music. And to encounter that, I mean, the first country album that I ever listened to was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the Birds. And then from there on, it was kind of like, oh, wow, I should probably look into this entire genre. And eventually arriving at someone like Miranda Lambert through a song like The House

That Built Me. And you kind of go, oh, this is the apotheosis of that idea, the idea that like a place can end up not only informing who you are, but when you are lost, that's the place that you're trying to return to. I mean, it's the unparalleled songwriting. It's a kind of song that like, I think the first time you hear it, anybody sort of has to like sit down and go, I need a minute or maybe to book a therapist appointment. I don't know which one first. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. What do you make of the line out here? It's like I'm someone else.

You know, because that sort of ties into the idea that like you're trying to get back to a place, you know, but you're only yourself. You know, you're trying to get back to the person you are when you're in that place. And if you're not in that place, you're just not that person. You're not the idealized version of yourself. What do you make of that line and that idea? That stretch of that song. Honestly, if you're not careful with it, it could just wreck your day if you kind of just like if you just happen

upon it. Because the two lines that precede that, right? It was just like, I find if I could touch this place or feel it, this brokenness inside me might start healing. There is this wholeness that is maybe artificial and maybe never really existed.

But in your mind, you say there was a time when I was less aware of whatever vacuum I'm feeling in myself now. And whatever that was, it was in this place. It was around these people. It was in this space. That's where I was sort of the closest to it.

And the idea that you're like, I don't know what else is different about my life, except I lived here and I wasn't in touch with that vacuum. I wasn't in touch with that. You know, and now I'm out here and I'm someone else. I'm completely aware of whatever. it is I'm lacking. That's a wrecking ball through anyone's life. I mean, like, that's, it's such economical songwriting describing the way that just one

axis or one sniff of a particular place can just bring you to being like, oh, that's when I felt a little bit more whole. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm mad about it, quite often. You're mad. you didn't think of it? What makes you mad? Just that it's, it's so good, it makes you mad.

I love that idea generally. The imagery is, is so beautiful, and the lines are just, like, so all-encompassing, right? Like, and there's, like, there's this tenderness of, like, if I could just come in, I swear I'll leave. Like, I promise, I'm not going to break your shit. I'm not going to, I'm not going to knock over the vase. I'm not, you know, and there is, like, can you just, can I just be returned to that state of being? Like, if I could, if I could posit an opposite image, you know, the opposite image is, is the old apartment by the bare naked ladies.

This is beautiful. Oh, please. Go on. Go on. I'm doing, I'm doing my, my Canadian duty. This, I was going to say, this is very Canadian of you. Got to do it. Got to do it.

I think the old department is like, you know, in the old apartment, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, narrator breaks into the old department and he's suddenly like, why is everything different? You know, you've changed my shit. You've painted the walls. You know, why do you fix a hole in the wall? Which is to say, like, this person is like, immediately like, oh, no, I was really hoping to return to a different self. And I'm actually, like, kind of acting out.

I'm quite erratically acting out in the song because I can't access that older self. And in this song, you know, in the house that built me, there is this, like, devastating tenderness that is kind of all about, you know, trying to say, I understand that things are different. I am trying to process that, but this is maybe the best place I could be in order to actually process that. I don't know if you ended up talking about

the Tanya Tucker cover of the song. No, I am aware of it. I haven't heard it in a while, but that was pretty recent, right? It is. Yeah, it's from Bring My Flowers Now, which is like this album that Tanya Tucker did.

While I'm living is what it's called. From like 2019 or so. But what's interesting about that cover is that Tanya Tucker changes the lyrics to be from the perspective of the mom who raised the kids in that household. And buddy, if you want to reckon well, find that cover. Yeah, that's going to be tough. That's, I don't know if I'm ready to do that right now. Yeah.

I do want to listen to this old apartment, though. I could do that. That seems emotionally safer for me to go that to the. that that is safe. That is much, much safer than Tanya Tucker doing the house that built me. She just little changes. Up the stairs and that little back bedroom is where they learned to, you know, like they did their homework.

They, just like they. And you got to go like, oh, I got you. Oh, brother. Oh, brother. Yeah. It's true. The Miranda line that's getting me right now is I'll bet you didn't know under that live oak, my favorite dog.

Something about my favorite dog is buried in the yard. Like something about I'll bet you didn't. no really hits me. I don't know exactly what that's about, but just as you say, sort of the tenderness of her talking to the current occupants, you know, who you can imagine being like,

who is this crazy woman, like get her out of there, but just the tenderness with which Miranda is speaking sort of undercuts the weirdness of the home invasion, you know, that this song is. That's exactly it. Is that like there is,

she's assembling in real time the thing that she's trying to return to, you know, I think like the ways that the verses and the chorus are in the chorus are sort of like in conversation with each other is that like you've got this you've got this course I was like out here like I'm someone else. I thought maybe I could find myself and sure we're coming back to this house. But then you kind of like this image of her being like oh it's because this house wasn't just a house. It was a house that my mom sort of envisioned for years and then my dad cut out, you know, like built it board by board. So there was like there was a. like an assemblage that is happening, which is like putting it together in real time, be like, oh, I was closer to the wants of my people, to the love of my people. And there's like, there's a truth to that expression that feels not only incredibly tender, but also like, it's like it's dawning on her as you're listening to her sing the song, you know? And so she's like,

the idea like you're, she's staying in this place where daddy gave life to mama's dream. And she's like, Oh, that's why it could put me back together. That's the thing about this place that puts me back together, you know? Absolutely. You were talking to me about, I think it's from last year from 2024, this song, I hate love songs, you know, that Miranda does. Like, she's put out an album, you know, annually since, you know, and she's married to a, like, a super swole, like, police officer.

Like, just her Instagram is just very mussely these days. Like, it seems as though she's thriving. personally and professionally. Is that your view of it? And is she still at the top of her game just as a singer as a songwriter as a superstar? I think so.

I get the impression that the Miranda Lambert is doing things that she wants to be doing. And in doing so, there's just like a freedom that you sense in her. And like the consistency of the projects that have come out

in the last few years has been quite staggering, honestly, because she's not someone who's like, interested in being like, can we have a gigantic promotional cycle for every album that comes out? She's just kind of being like, hey, I made this record, you might want to hear it. And then you hear it and it's great work.

Like I keep thinking of that song, that I hate love song song, because again, it's like Miranda being incredibly honest, incredibly vulnerable. And there's something about her that just feels like so accessible about being like, hey, here's a moment where I might have messed up my life and I have a lot of regrets about it. Let's just sit in that regret and what it sounds like for me for a moment. And there is something, I think, transformative about listening to an artist who's so comfortable with those unsavory emotions. She's still as funny as she was when she started. But she's also just gotten more and more precise with her songwriting.

And it's like, it's just a pleasure to listen to. Like I think like there was a Natalie Weiner who co-writes the newsletter, Don't Rock the inbox with the great Marissa Moss. Yes. Yeah. She did a great profile of Miranda. I think it was from, I can't remember from earlier last, from earlier this year or last year. But it's about like Miranda, it's about Miranda's new gig because Miranda is now the head of the co-head, I think, of Big Loud,

which is like the record label that, you know, has Morgan Wallin on it. She's head of the new division of it that's based in Texas, which is like a way of bridging Texas and Nashville, but with being based in Texas, which is like if you kind of thought that those two things are unbridgedable, right? If you're like, those are the sharks and the jets of country music. It makes sense to me. I don't know why they'd be the sharks. Totally. That's fine. Yeah, just don't overthink it.

Thank you. It makes sense to me that Miranda becomes the bridge for that. It makes sense that Miranda's like, I... The ambassador. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. She's someone was like, yes, I was successful and trusted in the Nashville machine. And also, I'm coming back home and I'm going to sort of feel this out and return to what that means for me.

Yeah, and I do believe she is touring right now with Morgan Wallin, you know, who is unquestionably, you know, both the biggest and the most annoying. current country superstar. Like what do you make of her like versus the bros? You know, all the good old boys, you know, all the super doodliness, you know, of mainstream country of Nashville at large. Like, is this another realm where she somehow both swims with and against

the tide of just how broish this genre is, you know, at its highest and, you know, country radio highest echelon? It's funny you mention that because, you know, to my mind is the only songwriter I can think of who has a songwriting credit with both the incredible country supergroup,

the high women, Amanda Choirs, Brandi-Karly, El Mora, Morris, and Natalie Hemby. She has a songwriting credit on that album. And she has a songwriting credit with Morgan Wallet. She has a songwriting credit on one of his, I think it was like two albums ago, this really beautiful song, actually, that Morgan has thought you should know, which is like a song that Morgan and Miranda wrote about Morgan's mom. And it's basically like Morgan in the middle of like, you know, this is the guy who's like, last night we let the look at the, but in the middle of that crazy album. That's a great impression of him, by the way. Thank you so much.

That was the best I could do. In the middle of this like crazy album, this loud album that he has or this loud career that he has, he's got this song with Miranda that is like, hey, I just want to write a song to my mom. trying to be like, hey, I know you worry about me, but I just thought you should know I'm doing okay. And it's like, it's marshalling in the gifts that I think Miranda has, which are just absolutely devastating emotional precision. And the fact that she can lend them to both high women and to Morgan Wallen tells me something about how she's not really about, you know,

basically factions in country music so much as she is about the song writing. She serves a songwriting a little bit more. She's much more interested in that. She has a song. She wrote a song for Jelly Roll. She wrote a song for Chris Stapleton

that came out on his last album. She wrote an incredible song with Lainie Wilson. She wrote a song with Luke Combs. She's pretty diverse when it comes to the kinds of people that she hangs out with. I think it's interesting to me

that she would choose this moment to go on a tour with Morgan Wallen because she's not billed as an opener. She's billed as a co-headliner. And I don't know what that means in terms of like splitting the costs or splitting the, you know, the revenue. But there's something about the fact that she's lending her credibility to that tour at a time when Morgan Wallen is trying to feel out his credibility and kind of return it to a place after, you know, all the things. All the things. Is that a good summary? Is that a good summary of everything that's happening?

That's a great summary. He threw a chair off a building, et cetera. He said the N-word. A lot of things have happened with Morgan Wallen. Also that, yes. Also that thing. So there is, to me, something that is, like, generous about the fact that she's willing to do that. And not alike, by the way, you mentioned them earlier, not unlike Eric Church.

I think Eric Church has also lent his credibility to be like, Morgan Wallen, there's something about this guy that I want to rescue, but I don't really know what it is yet. And Eric Church sort of like continues to not really give up on Morgan Wallen. Neither has Miranda for that matter. And I think like whether that's a purely financial thing or it's just like good for the brand or there is something generative about that creative partnership, I don't know. but my sense of Miranda is that she will just go wherever there is a good songwriting partnership to go and she'll credibly blend in, which is quite not an easy thing to do. No. Just to wrap up, and this is an absurd, huge broad question, and I'm sorry, is all country

a real thing, Elin? Like, I feel like country music, country music in particular is the kind of thing. Like, you find an artist you like, and you immediately have to be like, they're not like all this shit on the radio, right? Like you even saying like I listen to everything but country, you know, I listen to everything but like these country people. Even if you're in a country, you find something that define countries from you and you define that against the rest of country. Like is, are there so many alternatives and so many outlaws in country music that no one is really an outlaw anymore? Well, I think the thing that helped us a lot for a long time is when we look at the country,

machine in Nashville and say they're backing this person and that feels artificial to me. There was like there was a need to say I don't buy into that. I'm too clever to buy into that thing. And I think that's like that's where that's coming from is saying I don't mess with the machine that is that big. I don't mess with the machine that is that diabolical, you know, because it does feel quite deliberate and quite, you know, some not evil, but like, trying to manipulate you in directions, you know, shall we say. Sure. But there was, there's a great clip, I think it's from 2018, 2019, when Tyler Childers wins an award at the Academy of Country Music Awards for like best Americana artist or something. And he goes up and he says, Americana ain't no part of nothing, you know?

Yeah. And it's both a reference to Bill Monroe, Father Bluegrass, but also a larger reference to this idea of like, you can't trick us into saying we're not making country. music just because you want to keep the label to yourself. You evil jerks. Right. And what has been, I think, heartening for me to watch in the last little while is that even though the industry is very interested in keeping up that label, you know, I feel like the artists themselves are actually like, that doesn't really mean anything.

Like the idea of like All-Country doesn't mean anything. Like Sierra Farrell is opening for Post Malone. What is happening? She's awesome. She's so good. She's so good. She's awesome. You know?

Which is to say there's something about like, even though the people try to sort of like keep these worlds apart and try to say like this has credibility but this doesn't have credibility, it's really a matter of like what's your proximity to capital and what's your proximity to like a larger machine. But I don't think, you know, I don't think we need to sort of like hold on to the label so much as kind of like it just tells us who's in, in. who's bathed in Nashville's golden light at the moment and who's not. And incidentally, all the people who are like no longer in that light, they mysteriously move away and say, you know, I'm making a little something art, alt country now, which is like, no, you're just making country music without the support of a big machine, dude. Yes. Yeah. In conclusion, the bare naked lady.

You will be coming back on this show, Elamine, to discuss at exhausting length, the bare naked ladies. I'm going to make that happen. the time has come. That's a great part of our time said, don't threaten me with a good time, buddy, because I'll do it. Are you kidding? Was that the bare naked ladies?

I forget, I forget who saying now. Taylor Swift said that. That's a Taylor Swift quote. Oh, okay. I thought that was from Brian Wilson. I got that wrong. This has been wonderful, as always.

Elamina is so good to talk to you. Thank you so much. Rob, you're a delight. Thank you, for doing this. Can I wait for the disturbed episode? It's going to be, It's going to be one for the books, I think.

Yeah, we're going to do that next. Disturbed and bare naked ladies in the next two episodes. It's been decided. Thank you for your guidance. My pleasure. Thank you, friend. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Elamad Abdel Mahmoud. Thanks, as always to our producers, Christopher Sutton, Olivia Creary, and Justin Sales.

And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, please, let's all go listen to Miranda Lamberts, the house that built me. We'll see you next week.