Just because you’re young, doesn’t mean that your voice doesn’t matter. Country icon Miranda Lambert penned these four stellar, unforgettable songs before she even turned 22; and some of these tracks are among her very best work. Let’s take a look and get inspired!
1. “Kerosene”
This track is probably Miranda Lambert’s most well-known early career hit, and for good reason. “Kerosene” is the title track to Lambert’s famed 2005 record, and both the song and the music video became huge after their respective releases.
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Lambert wrote this cheeky song about a jilted lover who decides to burn down her boyfriend’s house. Though Lambert wrote the track herself before the age of 22, she did credit Steve Earle as a co-writer after realizing that she had accidentally copied the melody of his song “I Feel Alright”.
2. “New Strings”
A gorgeous Miranda Lambert original, “New Strings” is one of the best songs on Kerosene. It’s your typical uplifting country song.
Lines like “The Texas Sky is the biggest one I’ve seen / But it still ain’t big enough for you and me / All the things that make you mad / And all the baggage in your past / Don’t leave much room for a girl like me to be” prove Lambert was wise as a songwriter beyond her years.
3. “Bring Me Down”
This gorgeous track was a collaborative songwriting effort between a young Lambert and Travis Howard. “Bring Me Down” was released as the second single from Kerosene, and we think it’s a bit of an underrated gem.
4. “Me And Charlie Talking”
This is one of Miranda Lambert’s finest early-career songs, even if the songwriting duties were split between her, Rick Lambert (her father), and Heather Little. Still, this lead single from Kerosene was an excellent choice to show what Lambert was doing to the world. Oddly enough, this beautiful piece of work broke the record for the highest debut for a female musician’s debut single, but only made it to no. 27 on the Hot Country Songs chart in the US.
“Now and then I sometimes think of Charlie / And how we thought we knew it all back then / Now I’d give anything to feel love from a child’s heart again” are pretty heartbreaking lyrics when you really think about them.
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage
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