Miranda Lambert releases 'old-school' ballad for Apple Music's new 'Lost and Found' series

Miranda Lambert's latest release dives deep and long into her passionate love for the craft of songwriting.

For Apple Music's new "Lost and Found" series, she has unearthed "Driving Back There in My Mind," a song written by the Love Junkies, a trio consisting of vaunted Grammy-winning songwriters Lori McKenna, Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose.

The "Lost" demo and Lambert's recording are now available on Apple Music at http://apple.co/lostandfound.

The newly launched "Lost and Found" program is aimed at spotlighting unreleased country tracks.

A six-episode Apple Music Radio program hosted by the multiple-Grammy-winning songwriter McKenna will aid that process.

Lambert told "Today's Country Radio" host Kelleigh Bannen that the Love Junkies are "like magic and gold" as frequent collaborators able to express a seemingly limitless array of emotions.

She said she "group-texted" the trio because she wanted to "make sure I was digging deep in the well of what they had because they have so many that feel so right for me."

"Driving Back There in My Mind" was the eventual choice because it felt like a "really good old-school country" song.

The song's demo is the iPhone Voice Memo the Love Junkies recorded.

McKenna recalls on an upcoming Lost and Found Radio episode that the session involved her iPhone recording of Hillary Lindsay playing guitar and singing.

"I vaguely remember," Lindsey recalls. "I know we were in the tree house — that's what I always called it, (Liz Rose's) old house. I do remember picking up the guitar, though, and randomly doing that strumming pattern, which is very, very, very unlike me. I've never done that pattern before, and I remember thinking, this is kind of cool. This feels different.'"

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McKenna says they call it "a work tape."

"We never brought it into a studio and had a band cut a version of that song before it was pitched," she says. "It was pitched exactly as you all just heard it."

About the re-recording, Rose adds: "I was just in awe of how (Miranda) made it her own. I loved the song and I loved the work tape, and I loved it when we wrote it. But Miranda took it to another level, and I could see the picture of what was going on in the song. It was a song that I could see (being made into a) video, the way she captured it and just sang it. It was just amazing."

About the "Lost and Found" program overall, Lambert adds: "There are so many gems laying around Nashville that have never made their way into their light yet, and I love that this project is shedding light on those songs. And with my career, if I hadn't picked outside songs, I wouldn't have some of the biggest hits of my career. So I think it's so important for artists who are writers to remember you don't have to write everything that you cut. Many of your friends in this town are pouring their hearts out daily to make the best songs available to us, and they are right there. We just got to find them."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Miranda Lambert teams with Love Junkies on Apple Music series song