The Story Behind Miranda Lambert's 'Tin Man' Will Break Your Heart
Behind every great country ballad is an incredible story, and Miranda Lambert's melancholy tune "Tin Man" is no exception. The song is up for Single of the Year and Song of the Year at this year's CMA Awards, and the story behind it is truly heart-wrenching.
The single is featured on Miranda's latest album, The Weight of These Wings, which she wrote shortly after her divorce from Blake Shelton. The record wasn't an easy one for the country artist to write. "It's my diary of the last couple of years," Miranda told Taste of Country. "Some of it was not fun, but you've got to let life lead the art."
In the tear-jerking single, Miranda sings to The Wizard of Oz character, telling him, "You don't know how lucky you are/You shouldn't spend your whole life wishin'/For something bound to fall apart." And the emotions Miranda was feeling when she wrote the song are just as raw as they sound.
"Whatever influenced you the most at whatever time of your life, it some way or another comes out in your art," she told iHeartRadio. "'Tin Man,' I guess [was] going through a lot of times where I felt pretty empty-I understood a whole new meaning. I mean, how many times have we seen The Wizard of Oz? Something that everyone knows what the Tin Man represents; cold, and empty, and loneliness, and heartless. And it just opened my eyes to it even more, going through pain myself. [It was] sort of an epiphany."
The tune is also a tribute to one of Miranda's favorite songs "Tin Man" by Kenny Chesney. The country crooner was inspired by the way Kenny's track made her feel. She wrote the song on her front porch with fellow song writers Jon Randall and Jack Ingram.
"This song sort of wrote itself," she told The Tennessean. "I was a little worried at first about writing another song like that but I told Kenny…I felt the same emotion I feel when I hear that song. I was feeling it myself and the other two co-writers were feeling it as well. It comes from the same place and I guess it inspired it."
At the ACM Awards this past April, Miranda performed an acoustic version of the heartbreaking hit alone on stage, leaving many audience members in tears. She received a standing ovation for her moving performance.
While Miranda hasn't directly said the song is about Blake Shelton, it's clear that she's sharing her honest, raw emotions about heartache with her fans in the song-and we'll always love Miranda for her realness.
The 2017 CMA Awards air Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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