I’m SO here for it.
Today, Miranda Lambert released her new disco-inspired album Crisco, which she co-produced 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.”
She’s been doing tons of press around the release, and during a fascinating conversation on the New York Times podcast Popcast, she confirmed the long-standing rumors about her fued with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, and she also talked about her reconciliation with her fellow Texas star Miss Kacey Musgraves.
Earlier this year, Miranda and Kacey teamed up for their first-ever duet called “Horses and Divorces,” which is part of Kacey’s sixth studio album Middle of Nowhere, It marked not only a huge moment in the country genre from a purely musical standpoint, but a turn around in their personal relationship, too.
The two had a years-long feud that stemmed from Miranda’s song “Mama’s Broken Heart,” which was released as the fourth single from Lambert’s 2011 Four the Record album in 2013, and was written by Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and of course, Kacey Musgraves. The song peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Country Airplay chart and has since been certified 3× Platinum by the RIAA, which means it has moved over 1,960,000 units.
The simple version of the story goes that Miranda really wanted the song, and Kacey was reluctant to give it up, clearly knowing that it was a hit, and it was apparently pitched to Miranda without Kacey’s knowledge. Kacey wanted to use it as the lead single to her debut album, but she ended up giving it to Miranda (though she does sing background vocals on it), mostly for the sake of her co-writers because Miranda was the much bigger artist at the time. But being forced to give up her song created some resentment, understandably, that lasted for years.
Their beef also led to an iconic internet moment, which resulted from Miranda’s 2013 speech at the CMA Awards, when she won Female Vocalist of the Year, a category Kacey was also nominated in. That same year, Kacey won the CMA Awards for New Artist of the Year, and they were both also nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year with the aforementioned “Mama’s Broken Heart.”
The girls have known each other since 2000, being raised in towns not too far from each other and being into music from a young age, and their issues were very much real, as Kacey described their beef as “grade A, grass-fed,” so their making up and writing this song came from a very real place, and they completely buried the hatchet with their first live performance at Kacey’s recent Gruene Hall show, where she brought out Miranda as a surprise guest.
They were recently nominated for the CMA Awards Musical Event of the Year for the song, and Miranda says it was past time for them to get over their fight because, in all honesty, they couldn’t even really remember what it was about:
“I think it’s important, and also it doesn’t matter, really. Like, what even was it? Some dumb girl drama. We don’t even remember.”
That’s usually how it goes…
Miranda said it was an easy “yes” when Kacey asked her to do it, and she knows just how important it is for the girls in this industry to stick together and have each others back. Plus, the girls go way back and Miranda has know Kacey since she was 10-years-old as they grew up right down the road from each other:
“We don’t have to be best friends, either, but I respect her and she respects me. And we grew up, literally, I’ve known her since she was 10. We grew up together. That’s the thing. Very similar paths, 10 minutes away, basically same hometown. And so she called me about that, and I was like, immediately yes.
I really want us to be there for each other as artists in general, as songwriters, as humans and especially as female artists. There’s just a lot that goes into it, and it’s a we have the most amazing job in the world, but that does not mean it’s easy ever. It gets sticky out there sometimes, you know.
So having that moment with her was really cool. I got to go down to Gruene Hall and surprise the crowd and sing it with her for album release, and it felt good. Just like we say, ‘whiskey under the bridge’ in the song. But I don’t have the energy anymore to be so grudge-y and hold onto things that don’t matter.”
Miranda says, at this point in her life, she’s not interested in drama, and as she’s gotten older, she’s realized just how pointless the fighting and all of that is:
“At this point, I don’t really have any that I won’t bury. I also will just be like we’re not friends anymore, or you’re just not in my life. I guess that’s a Scorpio trait, that’s what I’ve heard. But it’s, I love you to death, or you’re not in my sphere. If those are toxic people, then they’re gone.”
Not only was the song important for them both personally and professionally, Miranda says it sends a message to the girls coming up behind them that it doesn’t have to be the way it’s always been in terms of the girls competing with each other to have one person at the top.
In fact, they can support each other and Miranda hopes that she and Kacey can “lead by example” in terms of letting the younger girls know that they don’t have to be against each other, but rather can support each other and help each other through this very cut throat business:
“Yeah, we showed that by doing this, you know what I mean? Lead by example. I mean, use it for good good songs and use it for press if you need to use it, don’t harbor it. This is a business, you know. I know people gotta do what they gotta do, but at the end of the day, what’s it worth.”
If there’s two people who know just how hard and harsh it can be, it’s Kacey and Miranda, and I hope that what happened with them can be a lesson to not only girls in music, but women everywhere.
It’s best to let the petty drama be “whiskey under the bridge” and if you get a good song out of it like “Horses and Divorces,” then that’s just an added bonus:
“Horses and Divorces”
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
