Categories: Music

Miranda Lambert’s Inspiration: Her Parents’ Surprising Careers

When Miranda Lambert released her album Kerosene, country radio programmers were reluctant to play her songs. The lyrics seemed too intense and controversial, as when she addresses an ex-boyfriend “Forget your high society/I’m soakin’ it in kerosene.”

I don’t write about angels, Jesus, happy days, kids. I grew up on drinkin’, cheatin’, love gone bad,” she explained in Contemporary Musicians. Apparently, the public wasn’t at all reluctant to listen to her songs, as Kerosene debuted at the top of the country music album sales chart.

Surprisingly, Lambert’s inspiration for her “love gone bad songs” didn’t come so much from any low-lifes that she dated (her romance with husband Blake Shelton seems straight from a fairy tale), but more from the women she came across in her parents’ business.

Rick and Beverly Shelton supported the family with earnings from their private detective agency, which often served abused women. Young Miranda learned how women were hurt by men who were supposed to love them, and she channeled their rage in such revenge songs as “Gunpowder and Lead.”

Lambert has also carried her message about abusive men into the public arena by criticizing the Grammys for awarding a statue to Chris Brown, the singer notorious for beating ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

“Get a good picture now, put it on Twitter,” Lambert told a crowd at the University of Massachusetts. “I’ve been in a world of hurt with Chris Brown fans lately … but see, I just have to speak my mind because where I come from, beating up on a woman is never okay.” (New York Daily News)

How to Get Free, Legal Downloads

If you a fan of Miranda Lambert’s hard-driving music, you might just be able to download it right from your local public library–for free. If your library carries a service called Freegal, you can download free music to keep-and it’s completely legal.

Miranda Lambert’s Songs Are Yours to Keep

“Do the songs need to be “returned” in two or three weeks?” you may ask. Nope. Once you download a song through your library, it’s yours to keep.

You can read more about how Freegal works in this article: Download Music From Freegal

A Sampling of Miranda Lambert Downloads Available for Free

All of the tracks on her albums, Kerosene, Crazy Ex-Girfriend, and Revolution are available through Freegal. The most popular songs include:

Baggage Claim

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Dead Flowers

Dear Diamond

Easy Living

Famous in a Small Town

Fastest Girl in Town