Miranda Lambert Credits Working in a Bar as a Teenager With Getting Her out of Small Bible Belt Hometown

By the time Miranda Lambert was a teenager, she was already working in a bar in her small hometown of Lindale, Texas. The 35-year-old admits she led a pretty sheltered life, until a surprise singing gig opened her eyes to a whole new world, and she never looked back.

“I’d started my plan of ‘How do I not go to college?’ I struggled in school,” Lambert told the New York Times. “I didn’t fail, but I barely passed. I was really, really a goody-two-shoes, and super boring. I was a good kid … Even my parents were like, ‘You’re not much fun.’ Then I made up for it. I started working in a bar at 17, and discovered a world outside of my Bible Belt town.”

Lambert didn’t set out to become a bar singer at such a young age, but when she was offered a job, it was one she couldn’t turn down.

“I’d entered a contest called the True Value Country Showdown, and finished third,” Lambert recalled. “We got to be friends with the house band at this bar because I was rehearsing with them for the contest. They called my mom and said, ‘Does your daughter need a gig? We just lost our singer.’ So I’d get home at 4 a.m. on Thursdays and go to school the next day.

“My mom had to come with me for the first two weeks, until I turned 18 — which she loved, because she could drink beer and listen to music, and I’d drive her home,” she continued. “I graduated high school early. Got in this program called Op Grad, for pregnant girls and people on drugs — and me. And I felt more at home in a honky tonk than I realized I would.”

It was while Lambert was still a teenager that she felt the irresistible pull to country music, even if she wasn’t entirely aware of what it all meant at the time.

“I remember writing a song when I was 17 on my bathroom floor, and my mom came in and listened,” recounted the singer. “It was called ‘Leave Me Lying Here.’ I didn’t really know what the song meant, but it was pretty deep. I lived a little, and then I was like, ‘Oh, now I know what that song means.’ That was one of the moments — I realized I could write bigger than me. Because at 17, what have you really lived?”

Lambert’s Wildcard album will be released on Nov. 1. Pre-order the record at MirandaLambert.com.

Photo Credit: Getty / John Shearer