There’s fire. And then there’s fire.
One’s the kind that fills your lungs with smoke, and one fills your heart with heat. And Miranda Lambert knows just how to use one to describe the other, as she does in “Fire Escape” off her brand new Wildcard album.
And both fires started for her in New York city.
“I never grew up with a fire escape of any kind. I mean, it was just walk out the front door if the house is on fire. So hanging out in New York, we had a place in SoHo, and people are out on their fire escapes,” Lambert said in a recent radio interview.
While she was there, she had her songwriting squad known as the Love Junkies — Hillary Lindsey Lori McKenna and Liz Rose — fly to New York on a whim. “Well, the interesting part about our fire escape is that there wasn’t really any stairs,” she said, “so standing out there, I was like, ’This is more of a balcony. Imma burn with this building but I’m gonna be outside in all my glory doing it.’”
Being in love and being a newlywed, Lambert explained, make you feel the heat. The newlyweds — Lambert and Brendan McLoughlin — will celebrate their first wedding anniversary in January. She originally met the N.Y.P.D. officer when was handling security during her October 2018 appearance on Good Morning America.
But back to the fire that burns inside you when you’re in love.
“It’s heat, you know? It’s heat, it makes your cheeks rosy. And I thought, ’What a cool way to say all of that with the fire escape reference.’ And the girls and I just sat there and kind of heard all of the street noise, and music in the background and horns and people rushing by, just like New York City is. I mean you feed off that energy,” she added. “But this song, I love this song. It kind of takes me back in time.
“I kind of picture like this 60’s and 70’s era when I hear the music, of these two people falling in love and it being like a metaphor of starting this huge fire.”
