Shamir – “The House That Built Me” (Miranda Lambert Cover)

Shamir

Shamir – “The House That Built Me” (Miranda Lambert Cover)

Shamir

Shamir is a teenager from Las Vegas who seems poised to take over the world in 2015, thanks in part to his ridiculous banger “On The Regular.” That song is a giddy, propulsive hip-house anthem, but it doesn’t exactly show everything this kid is capable of doing. Case in point: “The House That Built Me.” The song is a warm, nostalgic, generally masterful 2009 ballad from the country star Miranda Lambert. Shamir recorded a cover of it for Rookie, choosing it as the song that best goes with the site’s “first person” theme for this month. He recorded a lovely acoustic lo-fi one-mic/one-take version of the track, flexing a deeply impressive tenor throughout. The end result couldn’t sound more different from “On The Regular,” but it feels somehow of a piece with everything he’s done. Listen to the cover and read what Shamir has to say about it below.

In the interview that goes with the track, Shamir says:

I love Miranda Lambert so much. When you told me the theme, I was like, “I have the perfect song!” The song is so beautiful because it’s written like you’re telling a story to someone else. For the person singing it, you’re talking to a person living in a house that you’ve built with your family from the ground up, and grown up in, and have all these memories about. You’re letting the person know how special the house is, and all that you’ve done in it.

(via Rookie, where you can find the whole interview)

Shamir’s debut album is coming sometime next year on XL.

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