When it comes to poetry, I can think of no other songwriter who gets it the way Gretchen Peters does. A member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Peters wrote “Independence Day,” which became a huge hit for Martina McBride. “Independence Day” catapulted Peters to the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award in 1995.

She sang it in Lewisville, offering up a solo acoustic version, complemented by her own deft work on the piano.

Peters shared with the crowd how vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin co-opted the song during the 2008 campaign, against Peters’ wishes, and how the songwriter sought to “reclaim” it and restore the full luster of its poetry. It is not a flag-waving anthem, as Palin sought to make it by seizing only on the chorus and not the rest of the lyrics, which read like the pages of a chilling work of fiction.

It’s a song about a battered woman who puts an end to being a victim, who seeks her own “Independence Day.”

My own favorite song of Peters’ is “Idlewild,” which chronicles the 1960s as well as any poem I’ve ever heard. It carries a truism common to all great songs or great poems: You learn something new every time you hear it.

Peters led a lyrical parade of tunes from her new album, Dancing with the Beast, whose entries shimmer like finely crafted short stories, albeit with a dark undercurrent that profiles its hard-life heroines in strikingly different ways. She also sang her achingly beautiful “Five Minutes,” which actress Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey) has covered with her band, Sadie and Hotheads.

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