When I Was His Wife by Pistol Annies

Album: Interstate Gospel (2018)

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Songfacts®:

This crushing ballad was the first song written for the Pistol Annies' third album, Interstate Gospel. It started with a single verse and chorus that Miranda Lambert had been workshopping in which the pain of divorce is undercut by wry resignation. She quickly recognized it as one she had to write and sing with Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley.

"'When I Was His Wife' was an Annies title for sure. It came to me the day we wrote it," Lambert recalled to ABC Radio. "I mean, I didn't save it for the Annies. I just started writing it, and I was like, 'Hold on, this is for the girls.'"

Lambert texted her incomplete song to Monroe and Presley and both sent a verse back within 10 minutes. The collaboration, the first song written by the Pistols for a couple of years, opened the gate for the rest of the record.

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