“Dead Flowers” is easily one of Miranda Lambert’s most underrated songs… by a country mile.
She released it as the lead single from her 2009 Revolution record, which was a career-defining project for her and included other singles like her mega hit “The House That Built Me,” “Only Prettier,” “White Liar” and “Heart Like Mine.”
Yeah… the tracklist on this record was stacked, but I will never understand how “Dead Flowers” didn’t go #1. Well, country radio was a whole other thing back then which is a story for another post, but I digress.
The acoustic guitar-driven love ballad was a solo write by Miranda, and was actually was released as a single in 2009, but fizzled out at just #37 on the U.S. Billboard Country Airplay chart.
She tells the sad story of a relationship that has died out by likening it to the “dead flowers” in the vase on her table, which is filled with gray water and looks much less than desirable compared to when they were new and vibrant.
In a blog post from many years back, Miranda shared the story behind it, saying she had received a bouquet for Valentine’s Day that had to be thrown out in the yard because she was on the road so much and couldn’t keep them alive.
She said it was a sad image seeing all the flowers just laying in the yard, and the song pretty much wrote itself after that:
“I wrote it from a love gone bad point of view, but a girl told my mom that the lyrics were exactly how she felt when her dad left her. That really meant a lot to me and was such a different take on the song.
Where did it come from? That has been a frequently asked question in the last few days. I had some flowers that I got for Valentine’s Day in a vase on the kitchen table. I was going on the road so I had to throw them in the yard. They were just laying there and it was a really sad image.
The song came to me right away and was one of those ones that kinda wrote itself. I really do love it and I hope y’all do too. It should go to radio May 4th. The record is due out in Sept. I’m still deciding on a title.”
That record ended up being her aforementioned third studio album, and she more recently told Vulture that she still holds a bit of a grudge against the fact that it failed at radio, after he label pulled the song when it wasn’t charting high enough as quickly as they thought it would:
“It was a single, and I wrote it by myself. I did a video. The label pulled it from radio in the 40s. ‘Dead Flowers’ peaked at No. 37 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart., because they were scared that it wasn’t going to make it.
My band, every tour they’re like, ‘Can we do ‘Dead Flowers’?’ I guess I have a little bit of a grudge against it, because I’m like, damn it.
It makes me mad that it didn’t get a shot, but I’m still proud of it because I love it.”
It’s simply a perfect country breakup song with a great melody, and I think you can feel every bit of the fact that Miranda wrote it by herself and the feelings she experienced and put into the lyrics come through so beautifully.
There’s a few songs in her catalog that are simply stunning and stop me in my tracks every time they come on, and this is probably at the top of that list.
And speaking of Revolution, Vinyl Me Please released the first-ever pressing of her third studio album on a pink and black vinyl, which is gorgeous. You can check it out here, and I know I’ll be adding this one to the collection for sure because of how beautiful and unique it is.
Turn it up…
“Dead Flowers”
