She could’ve been Jessica Lambert.
Miranda Lambert is gearing up to release her new disco-inspired album Crisco tomorrow, October 2nd, and she co-produced the record with Jesse Frasure. It features 12 tracks as Miranda explores “heartbreak and hope, highways and honky-tonks, rhinestones and reflection, creating a record that feels both timeless and refreshingly alive.”
And in an interview with The Tennessean ahead of the release, Miranda opened up about the stories behind the songs, and she also revealed a really interesting fact that I’ve never heard before… her first name was technically “Jessica.”
It’s actually on her birth certificate, and at the last minute, her dad crossed it out and wrote “Miranda”:
“It’s literally crossed out on my birth certificate and he changed it to Miranda, at the last minute.”
Miranda’s parents, Rick and Bev, were private investigators in small town Texas when she was growing up, and they would often take in battered women and children and give them a safe place to stay. Obviously because of that, Miranda was exposed to a lot and many of those stories together over the years inspired some of her songs. Miranda’s dad was also a police officer at some point, and she is convinced he named after “Miranda rights,” which are of course the constitutional rights that police must read to a person before any sort of custodial interrogation.
Miranda says her dad won’t tell her if that’s where he got the name Miranda from, but her mom also thinks that’s where it came from:
“I literally think that I’m named after Miranda right. So does my mom.”
I mean, that’s just hilarious… I can’t imagine her being named anything else besides Miranda, I really can’t see her as a Jessica, and I think the fact that Rick won’t tell her one way or another says it all.
Speaking of her parents and their very unique work, like I mentioned, her hit “Gunpowder & Lead” had a lot of inspiration from stories she heard from different woman who would come and stay with her family.
It ultimately became a big radio hit, but Miranda took a big risk in sending it to country radio not know how the public would feel about a song that told the story of a woman shooting her abusive husband:
” I feel like, there’s small risks that don’t matter in the big scheme of things that didn’t pay off, I feel like, but the big ones always did. One of my first songs out was ‘Gunpowder & Lead.’ Like, that wasn’t that popular to be singing about shooting an abusive husband on the radio.
You know what I mean? But I was like, I don’t care, because it’s something I lived through, like, vicariously through my parents helping women and their kids. And I wrote a song about it, and I wanted it to be heard. It needed to be said.”
It’s easy to understand how much her childhood inspire so many of her songs, and while I’m sure there were times it was really hard for a young girl to understand, I think it ultimately became an asset to her creatively because there’s so much emotion in depth in those stories.
The whole disco-focused idea of Crisco is super intersting, a lot of the pre-released song have been really fun and upbeat, and Miranda is certainly at the point in her career where she can experiment and take these kinds of risks, and I really can’t wait to hear “Snakeskin Boots” with Ella.
You can listen to the teaser here:
If you haven’t already checked out “Two Things Can Be True,” you’re missing out. It’s easily my favorite of the pre-released singles:
“Two Things Can Be True”
“Sunset Marquis”
“Crisco”
Crisco Track List
1. Snakeskin Boots
2. Crisco
3. Cowgirl Curtsy
4. Two Things Can Be True
5. Cuttin’ Onions
6. Till The Going’s Gone
7. To Everything
8. Whiskey Business
9. Right Where We Left It
10. A Song To Sing (with Chris Stapleton)
11. I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song
12. Sunset Marquis
