Miranda Lambert: Tough and Tender

The first song I heard Miranda Lambert sing was "Gunpowder and Lead," a hard-rocking revenge cry from a woman planning to meet an abusive boyfriend with a little comeuppance.

Her songs were so incendiary, that at first the radio stations didn't want to play them, but when her album Kerosene went to the top of the country charts, they changed their mind.

Surprisingly, Lambert's inspiration was not a ne-er-do-well boyfriend of her own, but the women who were clients of her parents. Lambert's parents owned a private detective agency, and sometimes opened their homes to women trying to get out of abusive relationships.

Lambert has her tender side, as well, in songs like The House That Built Me. When she sings this meditative song about memories from a house her voice reminds me of Nanci Griffith.



Photo credit: Luke Lambert, via Wikimedia

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