Kacey Musgraves has addressed the rumors of a longstanding feud between her and Miranda Lambert — and says they’ve put all past beef behind them.
Musgraves, 37, and Lambert, 42, recorded their first-ever duet for Musgraves’ upcoming album, Middle of Nowhere, which she announced on Wednesday, March 11. The collaboration came about after years of iciness between the two superstars that dates back to Musgraves’ earliest days in Nashville.
Back in 2013, Lambert scored a hit with the song “Mama’s Broken Heart,” which Musgraves cowrote with Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark. Musgraves, however, had wanted to keep the song for herself.
“It was gonna be my first single and I loved the song so much,” Musgraves told NPR Music in an interview published on Wednesday. “Then, the song gets pitched to [Miranda] without my consent or knowledge. It was a tricky situation. She ended up loving the song and she really wanted it. And I had other cowriters to consider.”
Musgraves ultimately gave the song to Lambert, but the pair “lost touch for years and wouldn’t consider each other friends.”
That changed recently when Musgraves decided to reach out to Lambert about a possible duet on Middle of Nowhere, which is due out Friday, May 1.
“I saw her on Instagram one day, riding one of her horses, and I was like, ‘Well, we ain’t friends, but I guess we have two things in common, horses and divorces, that’s for sure. Wait, that could be a really funny song. What if it’s a duet with her? What if I got her to write on it?’” Musgraves recalled. “I just randomly reached out to her and I was like, ‘I know we’ve had our s*** over the years, but listen, we’ve at least got two things in common. I’m not trying to be your friend. You got your life, I have mine. But I think this would be a pretty f***ing funny song, and we should write it with Shane.’”
Lambert took her up on the offer, and they buried the hatchet on the song, which is indeed titled “Horses and Divorces.”
“She was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m in, let’s do it,’” Musgraves said. “So it was very full circle in so many ways. We aired out any of the old laundry. We had some laughs and wrote the song in a matter of a few hours.”
She added, “I think it could be also a micro representation of what I wish that the world would do sometimes, just f***ing sit down and poke fun at each other, have a beer and call it a day.”
“Horses and Divorces” is one of several collaborations on Middle of Nowhere, which also includes duets with Billy Strings and Willie Nelson. Musgraves and Nelson, 92, have worked together several times before, with the country icon appearing on 2015’s Pageant Material and 2016’s A Very Kacey Christmas. For Middle of Nowhere, Nelson sang on “Uncertain, TX,” a song Musgraves described as being about “a town full of f***boys where accountability is optional.”
“The song is an acknowledgement of that very transient modern dating behavior after what I went through, and the perfect person to help throw a little bit of shade to that is everybody’s favorite grandpa, Willie Nelson,” the Grammy winner explained. “He might even be a great-great-grandpa, but he’s also a gangster.”
