Few artists can make heartbreak sound more appealing than Miranda Lambert. Nowhere is her lyrical prowess more on display than the 2009 deep cut “Dead Flowers.” Lambert evokes powerful emotions by likening her failing relationship to the flowers withering away in a vase on her table.
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Lambert shared the real-life inspiration for this fan favorite in a long-forgotten blog post, just before Facebook fully conquered the world. The saucy songstress had recently debuted “Dead Flowers” — the lead-off single from her 2009 album Revolution — at the 44th annual Academy of Country Music Awards.
Miranda Lambert Says “Dead Flowers” Was Inspired by the Real Thing
I feel like the flowers in this vase
He just brought ’em home one day, “Ain’t they beautiful?” he said
They been here in the kitchen and the water’s turnin’ gray
They’re sittin’ in the vase but now they’re dead, dead flowers
In her blog post — which bears the quintessential early-2000s title “Cherry Limeaid and Puppy to go please….” — Lambert tells fans that the achingly sad lyrics were inspired by actual dead flowers.
“I was going on the road so I had to throw them in the yard,” Lambert wrote. “They were just laying there and it was a really sad image. The song came to me right away and was one of those ones that kinda wrote itself.”
Although Lambert wrote “Dead Flowers” from the perspective of fading love, like all the best art, it has taken on different but equally poignant meanings for listeners.
“[A] girl told my mom that the lyrics were exactly how she felt when her dad left her,” the “Bluebird” crooner wrote. “That really meant a lot to me and was such a different take on the song.”
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Why Does Miranda Lambert Hold a Grudge Against “Dead Flowers?”
“Dead Flowers” feels bittersweet to its creator, and not only because of its subject matter. Lambert told Vulture in September 2022 that the single “broke her heart.”
“Dead Flowers” debuted at No. 59 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart dated for May 2, 2009, entering the Top 40 in its third week. The song spent 16 weeks on the chart and peaked at No. 37 in July 2009.
Lambert’s record label would eventually pull the song from the radio after its performance on the charts failed to meet expectations.
“My band, every tour they’re like, ‘Can we do ‘Dead Flowers?’ I guess I have a little bit of a grudge against it, because I’m like, ‘Damn it,'” Lambert told Vulture. “It makes me mad that it didn’t get a shot, but I’m still proud of it because I love it.”
Featured image by Terry Wyatt/WireImage
