“Downtown” is one of Lady A’s signature tracks, but another country star had her eye on the hit.
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Before the trio of Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood cut “Downtown” for their 2013 album, Golden, Miranda Lambert was also considering recording it for her forthcoming project. But once she got word that the trio wanted it, she surrendered it to them.
“It was one of those songs that we heard and fell in love with and then found out that someone else had that song on hold,” Scott told radio station WYCD in 2013. “That someone was actually a girl by the name of Miranda Lambert, who I consider a good friend. She very very selflessly said, ‘Let Lady A have it,’ so we owe her a huge thank you.”
Lambert also shared her side of the story, revealing in 2015 that she had “Downtown” on hold, but knowing that she was in no rush to release an album, she took the song off hold so that Lady A could cut it for their album.
“Me and [Lady A] had it at the same time, but they were cutting a record before me, so I just let it go because I thought they would do an awesome job,” Lambert recalls. “And they did, and it was a big hit.”
“Downtown” was released as the lead single off Golden, topping the Billboard Country Airplay chart, and peaking inside the Top 30 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. The music video featured 2 Broke Girls star Beth Behrs causing a raucous alongside Scott.
“This is definitely the most fun we’ve ever had shooting a video,” Scott said in a statement at the time. “Beth was sweet enough to agree to help out for this video.”
Golden topped both the Billboard 200 and Billboard Top Country Albums chart.
Photo by Adam Hagy/Getty Images for ABA
