Behind the Meaning of Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic”

Miranda Lambert’s 2014 single “Automatic” is a nostalgic look back at a simpler time. The 2014 CMA Single of the Year and 2015 ACM Song of the Year was written in 2013 by Lambert, Natalie Hemby, and Nicolle Galyon, and remains a staple in Lambert’s live show.

While Lambert and Hemby had written together before, it was the first time all three women collaborated. Galyon, who was on maternity leave at the time after giving birth to her first child, says she was at a crossroads in her songwriting career. When she got the call to write with Lambert, everything changed. 

“You gotta show up and see where this goes, right?” Galyon tells American Songwriter. 

The night before the session, Galyon and Hemby talked on the phone to discuss song titles. One of those titles was “Automatic.” Hemby says Galyon had the song idea while she conjured up a chorus melody before they met to write with Lambert.

“We wanted to be prepared because we knew her time was valuable,” Hemby explains. “Miranda loved the idea and we started writing all those sentimental ‘old school’ throwbacks.”

All three women say the song is deeply personal to them and describes their childhoods despite growing up in different places. Lambert hails from East Texas while Hemby is from Nashville. Galyon grew up in Kansas. 

“I think it’s so personal to all three of us because we grew up in a humble way,” Lambert notes. “We all grew up in a simpler time and without sounding old or preachy, we wanted to speak to that time. 

Quarter In a Payphone 

Quarter in a payphone Drying laundry on the line

At the start of the writing session, the three women reflected on their time in Nashville. While Lambert was recounting her early years playing thousands of shows around Texas, she recalled a story from Patty Loveless.

“We’re having this conversation with Miranda about careers in Nashville and she said, ‘You know, back in the day, Patty Loveless used to say that artists in the ’90s would have to carry bags of quarters so they could pull the bus over and do phone interviews at a payphone,’” Galyon says. “Our minds were blown. That’s where quarter in a payphone, the first line of the song, came about. Then we had this whole concept for the best things in life don’t come automatically.” 

Sun Tea

Watching sun tea in the window pocket watch for tellin’ time

“Growing up, I remember my mother brewing tea on the stove and pouring it into a big jug with water and setting it out on the deck all day,” Hemby says. “It tasted like golden sunshine. It was delicious. I thought that’s what all tea tasted like until I tried tea at a restaurant. It didn’t come close to my mother’s … to quote Ted Lasso, ‘It tasted like brown water.’”

Lambert lived in a farmhouse without central heating or air and recalls her mom making sun tea. “My mom made sun tea and my job was to go hang the sheets on the line,” Lambert says. “We opened the song like that because all three of us had a relation to it.”

Three On a Tree

God knows that shifting gears ain’t what it used to be I learned to drive that ’55, just like a queen, three on the tree

“My truck, her name’s Tammy,” Lambert explains. “My dad bought me my dream car when I was 17, which is a ’55 Chevrolet Stepside. It’s candy-apple red and I still have it. It’s three on the tree and it’s how I learned to drive a standard. It’s actually the only standard I know how to drive. So, the fact that we could put those details in there that were so personal, but then they weren’t because it was everybody’s story. Everybody had their version of that, and it means the world.”

Three on the tree turned out to be Hemby’s favorite part of the song. “I had never even heard of this because I never learned to drive a stick shift,” she says.

Magic Milk

A new mom at the time, Galyon brought her breast pump in a backpack to the writing session at Lambert’s Nashville condo. The women were writing “Automatic” fast and didn’t want to break, so Galyon sat around a corner where she had privacy to pump. The women could still hear each other and were yelling lines back and forth. 

“At one point Miranda [was] like, ‘Whatever you do, keep the magic milk coming. It’s working!’” Galyon recalls with a laugh. “The song wrote itself. I still have never checked, but I would laugh if the tempo of the song is actually the tempo of what that Medela breast pump was.”

Adds Lambert: “I’m pretty sure we wrote the whole thing to the beat of her breast pump. One thing that’s beautiful about writing with girls [is] it just gets raw and real.”