Mama's Broken Heart

Lambert previewed this Four The Record track during her September 8, 2011 performance at the Hulman Center on the Indiana State University campus. "The reason I love this song is because it's about how sometimes when you get your heart broken, you kinda go a little bit crazy," she confessed. "You drink too much, you smoke too much, you cut your hair... you find a rebound. Sometimes your mama, if she's like my mama, has to slap you around and say, 'Straighten up girl!'"

This Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and Kasey Musgraves penned song finds Lambert re-visiting the unhinged-by-a-broken-heart territory she previously sung of on cuts like "Kerosene" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." "I have that angst naturally," she told Billboard magazine. "I always lean toward a sad song or an angry song more than a love song, but now that I am happy and in love and married, I can have the perspective of both."

Lambert nearly didn't get to cut this tune. She knew Kacey Musgraves from her days back in Texas, and they used to write together a lot. The pair went their separate ways, but Musgraves reappeared on Lambert's radar after her appearances on Nashville Star. The country star explained. "I don't think I was supposed to be pitched the song, but her sister actually shot some pictures at mine and Blake's wedding, and she was there, too. At our rehearsal dinner, I went over and asked her, I was like, 'Are you gonna cut this song, or can I have it?' And she was like, 'I'll think about it for a couple of days.'"
Musgraves granted her wish... with some strings attached. "She e-mailed me, and said, 'You can have it, if I can sing harmony,'" said Lambert. "So that's her singin' the harmonies on it - and actually, Kacey Musgraves, she has a new single out called 'Merry Go 'Round' so she's doin' great on her own now, but I had to actually beg for this song, and so I'm thankful that she gave it to me 'cause I love 'Mama's Broken Heart.'"