Tanya Tucker’s ‘The House That Built Me’ Cover Adds Rawness to Miranda Lambert Hit [LISTEN]
Tanya Tucker's forthcoming new album, While I'm Livin', features a cover of the Miranda Lambert hit "The House That Built Me," which Tucker unveiled on Friday morning (Aug. 2). Her version of the song adds a rawness to the award-winning song about someone hoping to find herself in the physical embodiment of her roots.
Tucker's rendition of "The House That Built Me," which readers can hear above, flips the narrative a bit: She's singing from the point of view of the mother who "cut out pictures of houses for years / From Better Homes and Gardens magazine," who now, in a re-written line, admits, "But once the kids were grown, it was just too much for me." The bridge, too, now reflects her children leaving home.
"I thought if I could touch this place or feel it / This brokenness inside me might start healing / Out here it's like I'm someone else / I thought that maybe I could find myself," Tucker sings in the familiar chorus, alternating between aching vocals and almost-whispered tones. "If I could just come in I swear I'll leave / Won't take nothing but a memory / From the house that built me."
Written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin, and released by Lambert as a single in March of 2010, "The House That Built Me" was Lambert's first No. 1 song. The platinum-certified track is a Grammy Awards winner (Best Female Country Vocal Performance), a CMA Awards winner (Song of the Year, Video of the Year) and an ACM Awards winner (Song of the Year, Single Record of the Year, Video of the Year). It also received Song of the Year and Best Country Song nods at the Grammys, and a Single of the Year nomination at the CMAs.
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Tucker's While I'm Livin' is her first album for Fantasy Records, and her first new music since 2002's Tanya. Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings produced the record; Carlile and her frequent collaborators, Phil and Tim Hanseroth, wrote most of its songs.
“It’s a musical biography of sorts, about Tanya’s real life and the places she’s seen," Carlile explains, "and it’s narrated by the greatest country and western singer this side of Johnny Cash.”
While I'm Livin' is due out on Aug. 23.
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