Few musical announcements excite me more than word of new material from Miranda Lambert. Lambert is one of the few artists I follow who has yet to release an album that’s less than excellent.
2016’s double album The Weight of These Wings was her best work yet, and that’s saying something given that her previous two records showed up in my top five albums of the first half of the 2010s.
If new solo material isn’t on the horizon, though, I’m more than happy to hear new material from Lambert’s side project, Pistol Annies. Pairing with talented singer-songwriters Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, Lambert has released two fine albums and is about to drop a third.
Interstate Gospel is due on November 2, but the trio has trickled out a few of its songs in advance. The first of those is today’s SOTD, ‘Best Years of My Life,’ a sweetly sad shuffle that opens with the memorable line “I picked a good day for a recreational percocet” and gets better from there.
I picked a good day for a recreational percocet
I’ve got an itch to just get high
I’m in the middle of the worst of it
These are the best years of my life
[Verse 2: Angaleena Presley]
I’ve got the hankering for intellectual emptiness
I’ve got the need to ease my mind
I’ll watch some re-runs on the TV set
These are the best years of my life
[Chorus: Miranda Lambert]
I was looking forward to
Staying here forever
‘Cause you asked me to
Didn’t think that I could do better
So I settled down
In this ten-cent town
It’s about to break me
[Verse 3: Miranda Lambert]
I’m gonna mix a drink and try to drown this worthlessness
Call Mom and tell her I’m alright
Well he don’t love me but he ain’t gone yet
These are the best years of my life
[Instrumental]
[Chorus: Miranda Lambert]
Yeah I was looking forward to
Staying here forever
‘Cause you asked me to
Didn’t think that I could do better
So I settled down
In this ten-cent town
It’s about to break me
[Verse 1: Ashley Monroe]
I picked a good day for a recreational percocet
I’ve got an itch to just get high
I’m in the middle of the worst of it
These are the best years of my life
These are the best years of my life
These are the best years of my life
The recreational Percocet line is funny, but this song is a bit too much in the traditional country mode for my taste.
Yikes… this is a dark tale. Get the hell out of that ten-cent town, stat! These poor women need to join forces and dump these losers and hit the road. I hope that’s the next track on the album!
I feel like a recreational something but I’ll settle for a Martini 🍸