‘Bring My Flowers Now,’ Tanya Tucker
Country music legend Tanya Tucker’s elegiac coda from her first album in 10 years, “Bring My Flowers Now” off _While I’m Livin’_, is a frank reflection of leaving this life, its imagery handled with a gentle hand in the song’s music video. The video features Tucker riding atop a horse, two young girls flanking her and releasing flowers petals to the streets. They stop at one point, wave goodbye. On her journey, Tucker passes a smiling preacher and a man in a convertible. Finally, she comes to a halt to share a moment with the co-writer of “Flowers” and _While I’m Livin’_ producer Brandi Carlile, who’s playing the piano; the out singer-songwriter and the country icon relay a deep mutual respect through a simple tip of their hats and a warm, silent acknowledgement. Then Tucker is on her way. The video is one of the year’s best, its simplicity the perfect match for the small, heartbreakingly specific details in Tucker and Carlile’s plaintive lyrics about Tucker’s life and its message of living for those you love now. “Don’t spend time, tears, or money on my ol’ breathless body. If your heart is in them flowers, bring ’em on,” she achingly sings. The years on Tucker’s voice are as life-affirming as the song itself. And these – plus its recent Grammy nomination for Song of the Year – are her flowers. Lovingly, Carlile has brought them to her.
‘Track Record,’ Miranda Lambert
Even Miranda Lambert knows she’s been a little busy with the boys. She mocks her floozy image with dry wit on “Track Record” from her new album _Wildcard_, owning it and treating it as a shoulder-shrugging fact of her life rather than a rueful self-analysis. I’m obsessed with what might be the Pun of the Year, as Lambert pokes fun at her ways with men, noting that her past is “as checkered as the floor at the diner on Main Street.” She even makes time for a casual dig, namelessly calling out past exes, the “user” and the “loser.” Sonically, there are traces of The War on Drugs in “Track Record,” matching the indie rock band’s signature sound with its hypnotic ’70s-rock-style torrent of glistening guitars and chugging drums. When Lambert sings, “Girls like me don’t mean it but we don’t know better, I got a track record,” you really do have to wonder: Is this the Grindr anthem we’ve all been waiting for?