Miranda Lambert’s giving her rocker side plenty of spotlight on her next album, Palomino, and pairing up with a few new pals in the process. The track list includes a song called “Music City Queen,” featuring the voices of rock legends The B-52s.
It all started as a pipe dream in the writing room, Miranda recounts, after she and her co-writers started picking up on some B-52s vibes in the track they were creating.
“And we’re like, ‘What if we could get them on this?’” she remembers. “So I called my manager. I was like, ‘Do you know anyone that might know the B-52s?’ Like, ‘I don’t know how this works, but can our people call their people?’”
Sure enough, when the rockers heard the song, they loved it. But with multiple vocalists, getting them together to record the song proved a little tricky.
“So they Zoomed in,” Miranda continues. “They did all their parts on Zoom, because everyone lives in different places.”
Miranda’s still never met the group in person but she’s hoping that will change, especially if “Music City Queen” turns out to be a stand-out moment from the album. The song would make for a fun live performance, she points out, and might give her a chance to put her spin on one of the B-52s’ biggest hits.
“If I could do ‘Love Shack’ with the B-52s -- I mean, how cool would that be?” Miranda declares. “If we could do ‘Music City Queen’ into ‘Love Shack’ -- I think that’d be the end-all, be-all.”
Palomino comes out on Friday.