Album: Interstate Gospel
Year: 2018
. . .
While country music is perhaps most famous for its cheatin’ songs, it also has a pretty good slew of divorce songs — which naturally follows, if you think about it — and in 2018, the Pistol Annies contributed a great one to the canon, the Miranda Lambert-penned “Got My Name Changed Back.”
It was a bit of a surprise: after their second album, 2013’s Annie Up, they took a hiatus, as both Ashley Monroe & Angeleena Presley used their higher profile to boost their careers — all five of the albums they released in that period are really good — while Lambert dealt with the high-profile end of her marriage with Blake Shelton in 2015 and released a fine double-album, The Weight of These Wings, though it didn’t really address the end of her marriage as directly as “Got My Name Changed Back,” a song which they debuted at their comeback show and became the highlight of their third album, 2018’s Interstate Gospel.
Of course, it wasn’t completely directly from her life — she never changed her name to “Miranda Shelton” — but the message of wiping out the memories of a poorly-ending marriage to a guy who was cheatin’ (of course!) rings forth loud and clear.
It takes a judge to get married, takes a judge to get divorced
Well the last couple years, spent a lotta time in courtsGot my name changed back (Yeah yeah)
I got my name changed back (Yeah yeah)
Well I wanted somethin’ new, then I wanted what I had
I got my name changed back (Yeah yeah)
With Monroe & Presley gleefully joining in on the chorus and stinging lead guitar after nearly ever verse, “Got My Name Changed Back” takes a bad situation and finds both empowerment and humor in it, with all three exclaiming at the end “I broke his heart and took his money!” in the last verse, which . . . ouch!!
In the end, there’s a breakdown where they all chant (in perfect harmony, natch) “I got my name changed back” over and over, just in case you didn’t get the point at how they happy they were. Sorry, guys.
“Got My Name Changed Back” official video
“Got My Name Changed Back” live at the CMAs, 2018
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