Last year, the great mainstream country star Miranda Lambert released her excellent album Palomino, one of our favorite LPs of 2022. Since then, Lambert has dropped a song on a Billie Joe Shaver tribute album and performed at Willie Nelson’s 90th-birthday shows. She’s got a busy touring schedule ahead of her, but she hasn’t let that stop her from teaming up with a fellow Texan star for a new one-off single.

Miranda Lambert’s new song “If You Were Mine” is a duet with the retro-soul singer Leon Bridges, who also played those Willie Nelson anniversary shows. Lambert didn’t know Bridges before she co-wrote “If You Were Mine” with Nashville pro Jesse Frasure and with her friend and Pistol Annies bandmate Ashley Monroe, but she still had Bridges in mind for the song. In a press release, Lambert says, “When we finished this song, we sent it to Leon in hopes that he would want to collaborate and we were so glad that he said yes. I have really enjoyed getting to know him and I’m happy to have him as a new friend.”

“If You Were Mind” is a sweet love-song duet, with Lambert and Bridges singing about all the impossible feats they’d accomplish if they could be together. It’s Bridges fully operating within Lambert’s world. (Jon Randall, who recorded the great 2021 album The Marfa Tapes with Lambert, is the producer.) But Bridges, it turns out, sounds really great on an easy country song. The video shows Lambert and Bridges in the studio together, recording the song. Check it out below.

“If You Were Mine” is a one-off single, at least for now. Check out our 2022 interview with Miranda Lambert here.