There’s a bountiful amount of great music on Miranda Lambert’s new album, Postcards from Texas. We have a track-by-track review.
The wait is over. Almost. Come Friday (September 13), you’ll be able to purchase Postcards from Texas, the long anticipated ninth studio album from superstar Miranda Lambert.
And after previewing the LP, I can this enthusiastic appraisal: It’s well worth the wait.
Miranda offers no fewer than 14 songs on Postcards from Texas, an irresistibly entertaining lineup that includes mostly new material, and one Stetson-tipping cover of a classic. It was recorded in her native Texas, with help from stellar collaborators such as Brent Cobb, Natalie Hemby, Jack Ingram, and the album’s co-producer, Jon Randall. And it all adds up to a superlative package that elicited this praise from Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone in his thumb’s-up, four-star review: “It’s a straightforward, happily down-home country record, an album proudly in love with tradition, and every bit as fun and heartfelt as you’d expect from one of country’s freest spirits.”
Amen.
1. “Armadillo”
(Aaron Raitiere, Jon Decious, Parker Twomey)
A pot-smoking armadillo? Well, why not? Miranda kicks off Postcards from Texas with a twangy whimsical ditty about a hitchhiker who asks her for a ride, and even offers to share a doobie or two — without warning that the cops are on his tail. If you are a tad skeptical about her story, Miranda has a pre-emptive response: “Don’t try and call my bluff/Honey, you can’t make this shit up.”
2. “Dammit Randy”
(Miranda Lambert, Brendan McLoughlin, Jon Randall)
Yet another breakup tune from the Queen of Outlaw Country, this one celebrating not so much the separation itself as her new-found independence. Either way, she sounds like she’s well rid of a self-centered dude who was miserly with his attentiveness: “Well, dammit, Randy, did you ever hear me at all?/You were standin’ bone dry in the middle of a waterfall/You were livin’ in the dark, but you couldn’t see the light of day/We were picture perfect, but you couldn’t put it in a frame.”
3. “Looking Back on Luckenbach”
(Miranda Lambert, Shane McAnally, Natalie Hemby)
Miranda’s sweetly nostalgic backward glance at the early days of her music career is at once charmingly affecting and teasingly ambiguous. Is she moved to “pop a top” to celebrate a cherished memory, or to muffle the pain of knowing the good times ain’t never coming back? She doesn’t even let us know if the guy she’s singing about is still in her life, or someone who departed long ago. Either way, it’s a beautiful piece of work. “Just a place we roll right through/But to me it’s always you/Sometimes I just stop/And look back on Luckenbach.”
4. “Santa Fe” feat. Parker McCollum
(Miranda Lambert, Jesse Frasure, Jessie Jo Dillon, Dean Dillon)
Another memory song, this one more specific and arguably more heartbreaking. Yes, Miranda — or at least the character she assumes, like a great actor perfectly cast — once again returns to a titular town to stoke warm memories of a relationship. But as she sings about her annual trek to “this empty turquoise town,” there’s no doubt that who or what she’s yearning for won’t be there. And she knows it. But never mind: “Every year September I come back this way/Hangin’ on a memory that won’t ever fade.”
5. “January Heart”
(Brent Cobb, Neil Medley)
Let’s face it: After hearing those last three songs, you may find yourself thinking: “Damn! Isn’t this poor girl ever going to find — and, more important, keep — Mr. Right?” So it’s both a distinct pleasure and a satisfying relief to hear Miranda sound dreamily grateful and unabashedly happy. If this cut gets the attention it deserves, don’t be surprised if, for the next several years, you hear it played as the first song at wedding receptions while bride and groom smile and slow dance. “I’ve been livin’ in Heaven/Been livin’ in better weather/Ever since you came around/You haven’t let the sun go down.”
6. “Wranglers”
(Audra Mae, Evan McKeever, Ryan Carpenter)
Miranda’s in badass mode again, harkening back to the days of “Gunpowder & Lead” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” In this case — as the wowzer music video directed by Trey Fanjoy makes clear — she offers empowering advice to a gal pal whose worthless boyfriend has departed: Burn every damn thing he left behind. True, “Wranglers take forever to burn.” But the fire is great fun to watch.
7. “Run”
(Miranda Lambert)
“Down,” one of the deep cuts on Gunpowder & Lead (2007), has always been, for reasons I would prefer not to explain, one of my favorite Miranda Lambert songs. With equal measures of smashmouth swagger and chilling menace, she warned that, because a guy had once broken her heart, she would spend the rest of her life taking revenge by loving and leaving naive/vulnerable men. (“You don't wanna be standing there/When the storm hits, you won't have a prayer/My wind will blow you to your knees/Stay away from me.”) “Run” is kinda-sorta in the same vein — an acquired taste, I freely admit — but she sounds a good deal more regretful when she tells her fellow that, hey, I was never going to stick around for long: “We held on for dear life, babe/But both us knew/I was gonna run… I was always gonna run.”
8. “Alimony”
(Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby, Shane McAnally)
Brassy. Sassy. Aggressive. Vengeful. And not at all ashamed to be that way. And really, That’s what made many of us fall in love with Miranda Lambert in the first place, right? “If you like livin’ at your mama’s house/And drinkin’ Milwaukee’s Best on a hand-me-down couch/You’re gonna love how this all works out/Cause it all works out for me.”
9. “I Hate Love Songs”
(Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
In a way, you can read this one as a prequel to the aforementioned “Down.” She admits in this wistful heart-tugger that she fell in love “one time,” and it “ruined my life.” And while she doesn’t sound bodaciously wrathful — yet — she is achingly regretful: “There’s no evidence/Of how the story ends/Sometimes it’s meant to be/That wasn’t you and me.”
10. “No Man’s Land”
(Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick)
One more warning song, this one more of a gentle ballad that a dire threat. But the message remains the same: Some women maybe shouldn’t be loved. But they’re impossible to resist. It’s hard not to think of Gail Garnett’s “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” as Miranda cautions: “You can hold her for forever/But she’s still/No man’s land/So love her like a Mustang/Like a wild thing/Better let her run free.”
11. “Bitch On The Sauce (Just Drunk)”
(Miranda Lambert, Jaren Johnston)
Do I have to say much other than an announcement of the title, and an confirmation that, yes, Miranda is brutally honest and unabashedly feisty as she considers what she knows is another bad life decision? Lots of women — and men — will listen to this one and experience none-too-pleasant shocks of recognition. Never mind “Need You Now.” More like, “I want you now, and to hell with the consequences.” “That front porch looks like Heaven/But I know in the mornin’ it’s gonna feel more like hell/But I drive up anyway/Cuz the good lord knows this girl can’t help herself/Yeah, a heart is a bitch on the sauce so I might as well.”
12. “Way Too Good At Breaking My Heart”
(Miranda Lambert, Jon Randall, Jesse Frasure, Jenee Fleenor)
Think of it as an instant sequel to “Bitch on the Sauce,” sung to a more insistent backbeat. She knows what she’s doing is self-destructively wrong — but she’s damn well going to do it. And once again, many people who listen will feel seen. “I know I shouldn’t but you’re lookin’ pretty good in the dark/I know how this starts/Damn I wish I wouldn’t but you’re/ Way too good at breaking my heart.”
14. “Living On The Run”
(David Allen Coe, Jimmy L. Howard)
And now for something completely different: Miranda Lambert takes over David Allen Cole’s role in “Living on the Run” — a cut from his 1976 album Longhaired Redneck — and can’t be bothered to a do a gender-switch on the lyrics. And not unlike John Cash’s appropriation of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt,” she takes it to heart and makes it her own. Of course, it helps that, with a few tweaks of the lyrics, she transforms a “murder song” into… well, a Miranda Lambert song. “A woman wanted more than a man could steal/From the bottom of the decks where I learned to deal/It ain't easy living on the run/Women love an outlaw, so they say/I'll be an outlaw till my dyin’ day/It ain't easy living on the run.”
