Texas Monthly (October 2011)

The Girl Who Played With Firearms

[edited version]

A man is likely to become only more bewildered when he meets Miranda in person. She not only has the perfect teardrop face but her voice is as buttery as a biscuit. "I'm sorry I say 'crap' so much when I talk, but I do like the word," she tells me during one of our conversations, popping out some lip gloss, as she does every ten minutes or so, and touching up her lips. She is also utterly unpretentious. She will happily spend an hour talking about all the abandoned dogs she and her mom have adopted (Miranda now owns seven but takes only Cher, Delta, and Delilah with her on tour). Or she'll chat about the books she's reading (The Help and Hunger Games). Or that she likes to bake chocolate-chip cookies. 

"Oh, listen, she's a complete, one-hundred-percent sweetie," Blake says. 

"Always?" I ask.

"Always," he replies. There's a silence, and then he laughs again. "But come on now. Do you think I'm dumb enough to risk getting in any trouble with her? Do you think I'm that stupid?" 

-

On their days off from their separate tours--usually Monday through Wednesday--Miranda and Blake fly in private planes to Oklahoma and meet up at Blake's 1,200-acre ranch near Tishomingo (population 3,293). "We piddle around, go back-roading, build brush fires, shoot at targets with our hunting bows. You know, the usual," Miranda says. "Sometimes I get him to go to the Walmart with me over in Ada. Or sometimes we go into town and hit the Dairy Queen.” 

After dinner, they curl up on the couch and watch true-crime shows on television (when I ask Miranda why she likes true crime, she says, "Dude, really? Have you heard my songs?"). Then, after downing a couple of "Rana-ritas"--a drink she created that's made up of Crystal Light Raspberry Lemonade, a shot of Bacardi, and a splash of Sprite Zero--they pull out their guitars and start singing. "Whenever we sing together, I try to outsing her and make her sound sucky," says Blake, "and she does everything she can to make me look bad, and this goes on and on, all night long, like two dogs fighting for a bone."

Blake, who's a good six feet five before he puts on his boots, and Miranda are a country music version of Nick and Nora, the always bantering married couple from the classic old film The Thin Man. They can't go five minutes without getting into some comic exchange about each other's flaws. Blake calls Miranda "the most damn hardheaded and uncompromising woman on the face of the earth. Once she makes up her mind about something, that's how it is, no matter how wrong she might be." Miranda, in turn, calls Blake, who used to wear a mullet, "a big old Oklahoma blowhard."

Blake and Miranda even keep up their needling through their Twitter accounts. In early July, Blake was booked to sing on NBC's Today show on exactly the same day and at exactly the same time that Miranda was booked to sing on ABC's Good Morning America. Blake began tweeting his fans, exhorting them to watch him. Miranda shot back in her own tweet, "They won't be watching you. They will be watching me!" Later she reminded Blake that she had a secret weapon to get more people to tune in to her show. "I have boobs," she wrote. Blake replied, "True, but only two." Miranda quickly wrote, "Well, if you count Pistol Annies, I have six!"

Blake admits that Miranda jumps on him when he has a little too much to drink and starts tweeting things that get him in trouble. "And if I ever tweet something about another girl being hot," he says, "or if some female fan tweets me saying, 'Blake, I love you,' Miranda sees it immediately and she's on my ass, going, 'What is that about?' When Miranda marks her territory, it's marked, and I love her for that. I love knowing she's that passionate about me."

But during my conversation with Miranda, she makes it clear that that love goes only so far beyond the border of Texas. She's told Blake in no uncertain terms that when she's pregnant and goes into labor, "I'm jumping in the car and hauling ass to Texas. It takes exactly forty-two minutes to get from the ranch to a hospital I've picked out right on the other side of the border, and that's where I'm going to be. Our child is going to be born a Texan."

"I told you, she's her own girl, and she always will be," says Blake. "But if you ask me, that's what sets Miranda apart from all the other female country artists who are out there. She's done it exactly her way, singing the songs that are important to her. Hell, the way her career is going, I'm soon going to be able to retire and hang out on the ranch and hunt deer and drink some beer. I'm telling you, Miranda is awesome!"

I notice, to my surprise, a number of men scattered throughout the audience, staring at her in rapt fascination. Perhaps they are at the concert because their girlfriends have dragged them there. Or perhaps they figure the concert is going to be a perfect place to meet hordes of single women. "Or maybe they were there because they secretly love Miranda," Blake later suggested. "Why wouldn't they? She lets you know she's a real woman. I think, deep down, guys look at Miranda and say, 'I wish I had somebody like that.'"