Spoon’s “Wild” isn’t the only new music video to feature a wild West theme. Miranda Lambert headed to rural Texas to film alongside real-life cowboys for the music video of her new single, “If I Was a Cowboy.” In the visual, she rocks a hat and fringe, and knocks back whiskey like a true natural.
It’s a rugged, convincing portrayal of life out on the Plains, with shots of the singer galloping on horseback across an open field, riding through a Western town and gathering around a fire with her fellow cowboys after nightfall. “This song has references to all of my favorite westerns,” Lambert said in a release.
The action culminates in a crowded saloon after a poker game goes awry, with one cowboy drawing his gun on another. Lambert looks on from the sidelines, sharing a drink with a fellow cowgirl. She’s the coolest character in the room — smiling and lifting her glass, as if that’s exactly what she expected would happen. By the end, she’s heading off into the sunset.
Appropriately enough, the singer was recently inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
“If I Was a Cowboy” first hit country radio airwaves last fall — a press release teased that Lambert was “ushering in her next musical era.” The song is a typically smooth, jangly Lambert anthem that finds her dreaming about breaking free of country sexism. “Wanted by the law, but the laws don’t apply to me,” she cheekily declares. The video shows her living a carefree Western life, sitting in the back of a pickup truck, not a man in sight.
Consider this Lambert’s case for letting your daughters grow up to be cowboys — as she sings, “So what?”
The song/video is one of two homages Lambert has recently paid to her Lone Star State roots, the other being The Marfa Tapes, an acoustic collection with fellow Lone Star state natives Jon Randall and Jack Ingram. That project is nominated for Best Country Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards. (Lambert is also nominated for Best Country/Duo Performance for the Elle King collaboration “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).”)
