Miranda Lambert photo by Randee St. Nicholas, courtesy of Front Page Publicity.

"‘Heart Like Mine’ started in Pigeon Forge. Ashley and I went up to Dollywood and spent the night in a cabin for a couple of days to just write and hang out and have some girl time. Some people might get mad about the lyrics but I grew up in church, and I’ve been a Christian my whole life. I feel that there are so many judgmental attitudes out there and this song is autobiographical in a way, because I’ve definitely had my share of being judged. I’m playing a character a little bit in every song. I don’t really smoke, but it sounds cool in the song."

"Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go"
(Julie Miller)

"I heard it on Buddy and Julie Miller’s record. You could easily soak up every inch of everything they ever sing. And I thought that this song would be fun to sing live. I play a lot of live shows, and I always think, I want to make sure I put some songs on here that are gonna be awesome to play live. That’s one of them, definitely."

"Sometimes I Wish"
(Miranda Lambert/Natalie Hemby)

"I’ve been obsessed with Airstreams for a while now. I don’t really know why. Don’t have one, don’t need one. But I want one! I always do ‘The Way I Am’ by Merle [Haggard] in my show, if I have an encore, just because I love that song, and it’s not right not to play a Merle song onstage. I was telling Blake one day, ‘There’s a song missing that I haven’t written yet.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you go write "The Way I Am" for you?’ And I did. That song is definitely, what if I wasn’t doing this? What if I could just fly away out of my body for a day?"

"Dead Flowers"
(Miranda Lambert)
"I was about to go record right after Valentine’s Day and I had gotten roses and they were so pretty, but I had to throw them out, because they get really nasty. I figured by the time I get back, they’ll be dead, so I just threw them in the yard. I was packing my bags and I thought, man, that’s sad. Those beautiful flowers are just wasted. I also leave my Christmas lights up all the time, because ? I don’t know, why not? And I looked out there and they were kind of hanging off the porch like they needed to be redone. I wrote that song in 20 minutes and I’m very proud of it lyrically. The longer you go not writing by yourself, the harder it gets. So I always try to keep writing by myself as much as I can."

"Sin for a Sin"
(Miranda Lambert/Blake Shelton)
"If Blake and I plan to co-write, it usually never works. We wind up getting bored or deciding to go drive back roads instead. But if we just happen upon it, something great comes out of it. This was late at night, and it was so cool because Blake put himself in a 25-year-old girl’s place and wrote from my perspective. It’s basically about cheating, love gone bad, and the death of something, whether it’s love or a person—however you want to interpret it. My mom always says, never return evil for evil. So I kind of put that into my own words and wrote ‘A Sin for a Sin.’ Because drinking and digging a hole in return for cheating doesn’t solve anything—but people do it! To me that’s the song on my record that sounds most like ‘Kerosene’ and ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.’ It’s me in a nutshell. If people have never heard my music before, there’s kind of a little theme going there. Nobody really gets to live out all their fantasies. I just get to sing mine in songs."

"White Liar"
(Miranda Lambert/Natalie Hemby)
"Yes, there is a sin for a sin in this one, too. I just had been listening to tons of Buddy and Julie Miller and the Steeldrivers, that rockin’ bluegrass music. Cheatin’ in a small town basically is what it’s about. I hope it is a single. Well, hell, I want all of them to be singles!"

"That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round"
(John Prine)

"I was really nervous to record it the way we did, because I respect John Prine beyond belief. But to me, if you’re going to cut somebody’s song, don’t do it just like they did it. Put your own twist on and make it your yours. We cut it "crazy"—a little bit Miranda, a little bit country, a little bit punk. That song was the most fun I’ve ever had recording. It sounds like we were having a party when we cut it, and believe me we were."

"Virginia Bluebell"
(Miranda Lambert/Natalie Hemby/Jennifer Kennard)

"Natalie has such cool ideas that I would never think of. I always go straight to love gone bad—pretty much the same thing all the time. I didn’t really know what a Virginia bluebell was. But it’s a little flower that hangs down like a bell, and it sort of droops, but it’s beautiful. This song is something so different for me. I’ve never heard a song like that and never would have thought of writing it on my own. The dead flowers came back to life as Virginia

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