Throughout his more than 50-year career, Steve Earle has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Carl Perkins, Joan Baez, Lucinda Williams, and The Pretenders, among others. In 2005, Earle also ended up credited on an early Miranda Lambert song, even though the two had never met or worked on the track together.
Though Lambert wrote the lyrics of “Kerosene” in its entirety, Earle also inadvertently wrote her first hit song. Lambert admitted that “Kerosene,” about giving up on love after a bad breakup, was directly pulled from Earle’s song “Feel Alright,” the opening and title track on his 1996 album.
A longtime fan of Earle’s, Lambert also covered some of his songs live, including “Hillbilly Highway” at Austin City Limits in 2006. “We’re going to rip him [Earle] off, too,” joked Lambert before covering Earle. “We already did a Merle [Haggard] song, we’re going to do one of his. I think it’s OK to rip off people you like.”
Lambert later said that she had listened to “Feel Alright” so often that it just became part of her song.
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“I didn’t purposefully plagiarize his song.”
“I didn’t purposefully plagiarize his song, but unconsciously, I copied it almost exactly,” admitted Lambert. “I guess I’d listened to it so much that I just kind of had it in there.”
Trade the truth in for a lie
Cheating really ain’t a crime
I’m giving up on love ’cause love’s given up on me
Forget you, 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 loves given up on me
[RELATED: 7 Songs Steve Earle Wrote for Other Artists]
“This Is How It Ends”
Once released, “Kerosene,” also the title track of her debut album, reached No. 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart, marking her first entry into the Top 20.
Since Earle was rightfully credited on “Kerosene,” there were no hard feelings over Lambert’s hit. “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 s–t like that,” said Earle of “Kerosene” in 2017. “I’ve been sued enough, mainly divorces, so I don’t particularly care to be involved in that myself.”
In 2017, he and Lambert even ended up co-writing “This Is How It Ends” from Earle’s album So You Wannabe an Outlaw.
The two finally connected while Earle was working on So You Wannabe an Outlaw and had started to work with other writers after his then-collaborator Guy Clark passed away.
“When Guy Clark was ill, and after he passed away, I started coming here and co-writing a little bit,” said Earle. “I tried to do that with him, but then he got too sick to do it. But I made appointments with a few people to come into town to write, and Miranda was one of them. She and Allison [Moorer, Earle’s ex-wife] got their hair done in the same place when Allison and I first got married.”
In the first few years, Earle and Moorer were in Nashville more often than they had been in the past decade and connected with Lambert. “Occasionally, I would drop Allison off or pick her up at the beauty shop,” adds Earle. “That’s where Miranda and I actually met.”
Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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