Miranda Lambert Gave Steve Earle a Writing Credit on Her First Top 20 Hit After Unintentionally Plagiarizing Him

In 2005, Miranda Lambert scored her first Top 15 hit with “Kerosene”. The song is her third single and the title track of her debut record. Lambert released Kerosene two years after she came in third place on Nashville Star in 2003.

Interestingly, the title of the song and record only appears once in the song, at the beginning of the third verse, which says, “Forget your high society, I’m soakin’ it in kerosene / Light ’em up and watch them burn, teach them what they need to learn, ha / Dirty hands ain’t made for shakin’, ain’t a rule that ain’t worth breakin’ / Well, I’m givin’ up on love ’cause love’s given up on me.”

Lambert wrote all but one of the 12 songs on Kerosene, penning five of them by herself. “Kerosene” is the first song on the record, which is credited to Lambert and Steve Earle. However, Earle was not actually in the writing room when Lambert wrote “Kerosene”, although he is still listed as her co-writer.

Why Miranda Lambert Includes Steve Earle as a Writer on “Kerosene”

Lambert later revealed that she listed Earle as a writer on “Kerosene” after she realized she unintentionally copied from his “I Feel Alright” song, out in 1996.

 “I didn’t purposefully plagiarize his song,” Lambert explains. “But unconsciously I copied it almost exactly. I guess I’d listened to it so much that I just kind of had it in there.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Earle didn’t ask for a songwriting credit, nor was he bothered by the similarities in their two songs.

“I hadn’t even heard it, and I felt bad telling her that I never would have done anything about it either if I’d known, because I don’t do sh– like that,” Earle, who has been married seven times, later tells Rolling Stone. “I’ve been sued enough, mainly divorces, so I don’t particularly care to be involved in that myself.”

Clearly, there were no hard feelings. In 2017, Earle released his So You Wanna Be An Outlaw album. The record includes “This Is How It Ends“, a duet with Earle and Lambert.

Kerosene also includes “Me And Charlie Talking”, a Top 30 single. “Kerosene” is Lambert’s biggest hit from the record. The platinum-selling song also gave Lambert her very first Grammy nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Lambert lost that year to Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take The Wheel”.

Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage