From one country queen to another.
Lainey Wilson just released her fifth studio album Whirlwind this past Friday, and one of the pre-released singles “Good Horses” features her friend and fellow superstar Miranda Lambert.
The pair have been friends for a little while now, and Miranda has taken Lainey under her wing, so to speak, and helped her navigate this newfound stardom and given her plenty of advice and pointers on the industry and how to handle all of these new opportunities.
In an interview on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country, Lainey talked about writing “Good Horses” and how that came to be (after Miranda made her nap, which we’ll get to):
“She invited Luke Dick out there, and we’ve written quite a few songs together and we were kind of up on the balcony of one of her little cabins, and we were sitting there just kind of picking around on guitar and we started writing the song, and three bluebirds flew up and they both kind of looked at each other and I’m like, ‘What?’
And they said, ‘This is exactly where we were when we were writing ‘Bluebird’ and three bluebirds had flown up on that same porch.’ And I mean… I’m superstitious like that.”
The song is great, but as good of a co-writer as Miranda is, she sounds like an even better friend, and has called Lainey before and made sure she’s taking care of herself. Miranda has certainly been in Lainey’s shoes before, she knows just how important it is to take a step back from the madness at times, and she made sure Lainey did that too:
“She called me one day and she’s like, she said, ‘You need a nap.’ She said, ‘You’re going to come out to my farm and you’re going to take a nap, and then we’re going to feed you, and then you take another nap.
And then if you want to write a song, we can write a song. If not, blah, blah, blah.’ And she genuinely cares about me.”
And considering that Miranda has been at the forefront of country for over 20 years now, she thinks it’s time for someone new to carry the torch, so to speak, of the next generation of bad**s female artist, and Miranda wants Lainey to be the one to do it.
Lainey explained that Miranda has told her many times that she’s “passing the torch” to her, though Lainey admitted that it’s a “big old torch to pass” (and I agree). Lainey reminds me a lot of Miranda in so many ways, but her willingness to champion the genre and support younger, up-and-coming artists makes her the perfect person for the (figurative) job:
“She’s told me many times, she’s like, ‘I’m passing you the torch.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s a big old torch to pass.’ But she has paved the way for people like me, and it just has to continue to happen.
The truth is, we’re not where we need to be when it comes to the females in country. We still got way more female voices that have not been heard that are going to get heard. But it’s because of people like Dolly who paved it for people like Reba who paved it for people like Wynonna.
It just continues, continues, continues. And then Miranda’s paving it for people like me.”
And I know Lainey will do the same for others coming up behind her, which is important and rare and extremely exciting for the future of the mainstream part of the genre.
Miranda has spoken openly about her struggle coming up in country when there wasn’t a massive female star she could be mentored by when she started gaining traction as an artist. After 90’s stars like Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Martina McBride peaked, there was sort of a gap in terms of a group of female superstars getting pushed to the masses.
After those aforementioned women sort of aged out of radio play and major mainstream recognition, there was no one. No woman to take Miranda under her wing to even talk about the simple things with, so it’s not surprising that she’s so excited about Lainey and willing to help her.
These two are such a power pair, and I hope they continue to write and record songs together because they’re a duo country music needs.
Listen to “Good Horses” here:
