Miranda Lambert – The House That Built Me

“The House That Built Me” – Single by Miranda Lambert from the album Revolution
Released March 8, 2010
Label Columbia Nashville
Songwriters Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin
Producers Frank Liddell and Mike Wrucke
Charted No.28 in US (Billboard HOT 100); No.1 in US (Billboard Hot Country Songs)

Miranda Lambert first came across this with her boyfriend, Blake Shelton, while listening to songs for Revolution. She told CMT that it was a “life-changing song ” for her. She added: “I love it. That song came on and my reaction to it was… I just cried. I don’t really cry when I listen to music, but that song definitely hit me really hard. I asked Blake if I could have it. We called the producers at midnight and asked, ‘Can we switch this? It’s on hold for Blake… can we put it on hold for Miranda?”Lambert explained that it was memories of the house that she grew up in, which triggered the tears when she first heard the song. “My parents live right down the street from the house I grew up in. I grew up in one house until I was 14, and they live in the house where I lived from 14 on. Our friends live in the old house, actually.”

Lambert told CMT that when she went into the studio to record this song, she asked her mom to do her a special favor… but didn’t tell her why. “My Mom went and took pictures of [the house] for me, and e-mailed them to me when I was cutting the song. I didn’t tell her why. I just told her I needed pictures of the old house. I had them on the music stand in front of me when I was recording that song.”

It is the fastest-rising single of her career, reaching the Top 20 in its eighth week. For the chart week of June 12, 2010, the song became Lambert’s first number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and held its place at the top for four consecutive weeks. It is also Lambert’s first single of her career that she did not have a hand in writing. Additionally, it was her second single to receive a platinum certification from the RIAA on January 31, 2011.

“The House That Built Me” debuted at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of March 6, 2010. It also debuted at number 98 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of April 10, 2010, and at number 91 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart for the week of May 1, 2010; overall, it has become her most successful single on both of these charts. It is Lambert’s fastest-rising single to date, and for the chart week of June 12, 2010, the song became her first number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It reached its 2 million sales mark in the US by April 2014.

The music video, which was directed by Trey Fanjoy, premiered on CMT on April 8, 2010. In the video, Lambert’s tour bus pulls up to her childhood home, and she walks up to the front door to ask if she could come in. Inside the house, she wanders through the various rooms, while documentary flashbacks of her family and herself as a child in a house that looks nearly identical to the one in the video, are mixed in. Throughout the video, Lambert is shown performing with her acoustic guitar, seated on the floor in one of the bedrooms. Some of the footage used for the flashbacks consists of Lambert’s own home videos. The video was filmed at a house just outside Nashville.

Lambert told The Boot that the concept of the video was clear: “This was one of those videos that needed to be really obvious … [The director] found a house that looked a lot like the house I grew up in. There’s no drama in the video. It just is what it is. It represents the song in such a great way.

At the 2011 Grammy Awards, Lambert performed this song after being introduced by her fiancé Blake Shelton. She took home the award for Best Female Country Vocal that night.

This won the Single Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Video of the Year prizes at the 2011 ACM Awards. Lambert also won Top Female Vocalist of the Year at the same ceremony.