One of the biggest songs of all time, "Choosin' Texas," started with a pet kangaroo named Olivia Rootin' John.
When Miranda Lambert was on a writers' retreat with Ella Langley, whose "Dandelion" album the blonde country music veteran co-produced and helped write, Lambert was asked whether she really owned a pet kangaroo.
"I told her I did," Lambert said.
Lambert had been driving through rural Oklahoma with the kangaroo riding beside her and five rescue dogs piled into the back when a police officer pulled her over.
The officer met the dogs and never wrote Lambert a ticket.
When Lambert finished telling the story, Langley joked the officer was probably thinking: "She's from Texas, I can tell."
"That's it," Lambert said. "That's what we write next."
Langley returned the favor on the new album "Crisco," joining Lambert for the song "Snakeskin Boots," a cinematic, late-'60s Western strut written with Brendan McLoughlin, Jesse Frasure and Natalie Hemby. Their connection had become obvious while making "Dandelion."
"We're kindred spirits, like soul sisters," Lambert said. When writing "Snakeskin Boots," Lambert thought of the movie "Thelma and Louise" and what the feminine duo might have gotten up to if they hadn't driven off a cliff at the end. Lambert realized that, despite her many achievements so far in her career, she's entering a new era rather than a sunset.
At 42, Lambert is now the most nominated female artist in CMA Awards history. Her seven nominations for the Nov. 18 ceremony bring her career total to 70, including a record 19th nomination for female vocalist of the year. She has won three Grammys and 14 CMA Awards and is the most-awarded artist in ACM Awards history.
And she's still finding firsts as she explores new influences. On Oct. 2, Lambert releases "Crisco," a 12-track album whose title comes from a portmanteau so obvious she couldn't believe no one had coined it before.
"Country and disco equals Crisco," she said.
Helping Langley build her own body of work had given Lambert a new way to think about what the "Kerosene" singer wanted to do with her own success. Her mother has a phrase for it: "operate in your gifting."
For Lambert, that can mean writing and producing for another artist, lifting up her peers or advocating for shelter pets through MuttNation Foundation, the nonprofit she co-founded with her mother. It can also mean exploring new musical influences and instrumentation that she's never experimented with before.
Miranda Lambert enters her disco era
Lambert has always known the sharp-tongued, Texas-born country hero she wanted to be. There was, however, a brief moment when the songwriter almost had a different name.
"My name was Jessica on my birth certificate," Lambert said. "It's something I've never told anyone, I don't think."
Her father crossed it out.
"It's literally crossed out on my birth certificate and he changed it to Miranda, at the last minute," she said.
The choice carries a particularly fitting family footnote. Lambert's parents, Rick and Bev, worked as private investigators, exposing their daughter early to the messy humanity that would eventually populate her songs: cheating spouses, broken homes, people behaving badly and people finding their way out. Her father had also been a police officer. Her family sometimes opened their home to women and children who needed somewhere safe to stay.
"I literally think that I'm named after Miranda rights," she said. "So does my mom."
Her father won't tell her whether the legal warning inspired his last-minute edit.
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It was difficult to imagine her called anything but Miranda when she sat in a room off Music Row with a rescue dog named Bellamy by her side and more than two decades of country music history behind her.
She shared that, at first, she had merely envisioned writing a few new songs, maybe an EP. Then the disco-diamond world, drenched in country music and smooth-as-butter grooves, kept expanding.
"I was having so much fun writing in that vein that I was like, 'Let's just make it a whole record.'"
"Crisco" is a honky-tonk-meets-Studio-54 fever dream. The title track mixes country and disco, invoking Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights" and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream."
"It's got a ton of country music influence, but also has a ton of disco influence," Lambert said. "We really balanced that out on purpose. It was intentional."
Behind the scenes with Chris Stapleton, wearing Dolly Parton's jewelry
The road to "Crisco" began with "A Song to Sing," her duet with Chris Stapleton.
The two sing about years spent running down roads through highs, lows and broken dreams, casting two people as melody and harmony. Lambert wasn't interested in dipping a boot into the '70s. She wanted the whole roller-rink fantasy.
"We didn't make an ode to '70s," she said. "We went straight in."
And straight in meant roller skates, period styling and a music video filmed at the Brentwood Skate Center followed.
"I was shocked that Chris is a really good skater," she said. "I was like, 'Do y'all just go skating on the weekends? Like, did I miss the memo?'"
The commitment to the era extended to country royalty.
Stylist Tiffany Gifford pulled a pair of Dolly Parton's golden hoop earrings from the archives for Lambert and a Kenny Rogers necklace for Stapleton.
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"I was a little bit nervous all day and put two backs on them," Lambert said. "They weren't heavy. Dolly was smart. She was like, 'I don't need my earlobes weighed down.'"
The glittering, country-soaked time travel served as a conduit for the rest of "Crisco."
"Two Things Can Be True" is classic country betrayal delivered with restraint: the man beside her can still be hers while falling for somebody else. Lambert's lower register lets the contradiction carry the heartbreak. Strings on this song and "Cowgirl Curtsy" give both a sweeping, countrypolitan ache, a first for Lambert after 23 years of recording.
"Till The Going's Gone" sends its narrator from Reno, Nevada, to Saginaw, Michigan, to Abilene, Texas, unable to stay put. The interstate becomes both escape route and life philosophy: when you're stuck, keep going.
Country music with a full orchestra
By the closer, "Sunset Marquis," the wandering stops at the famed West Hollywood hideaway, where palm trees, jasmine and champagne replace interstates and motel rooms. Lambert has returned for nearly 20 years, crossing paths with Steven Tyler and Billie Joe Armstrong and once sharing drinks with Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill and the original Marlboro Man.
"It's not fancy," Lambert said. "The Sunset Marquis feels like this little oasis where once you walk through the door, you're kind of safe when you're there."
"Crisco's" orchestral turn will also follow Lambert back to Nashville. She'll open The Truth, a new venue in Wedgewood-Houston, on Oct. 1 with a show that reimagines songs from her catalog with strings.
"It was magical to hear the way strings can transform a song when we were in the studio creating this record, and I can't wait to bring that to life in an even bigger way with our full setlist," Lambert said. "We've never gotten to play that way on stage."
"Whenever I can use the skill that God gave me that I haven't used for myself, I want to use it for good for other people," she said, adding that she is finally living up to her life's purpose right now. And that is a path full of new adventures ahead.
Bryan West is a music reporter at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Miranda Lambert shares the real stories behind her new hits | Exclusive
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