Carrie Underwood Says New Single, ‘Cry Pretty’, Is About Letting Your Emotions Take Over
Carrie Underwood's says her new single, "Cry Pretty," is about those moments when you can't help but let your emotions show. In an open letter to fans, published on her website on Tuesday (April 10), the country superstar revealed the name of and some details about the new song, and gave readers an update on what's been going on in her life.
In her open letter, Underwood shares that she wrote "Cry Pretty" with well-known Nashville songwriters Hillary Lindsey, Liz Rose and Lori McKenna. In 2017, the four got together "to see if we could come up with some magic … and we did!"
"The title refers to when emotions take over and you just can’t hold them back," Underwood explains. "It really speaks to a lot of things that have happened in the past year, and I hope when you hear it, you can relate those feelings to those times in your life.
"It’s emotional. It’s real. And it ROCKS!" she adds.
"Cry Pretty" will be the first single from a new album from Underwood; as she teased previously, the song will drop on Wednesday morning (April 11) at 6AM ET, and she will officially debut the track at the 2018 ACM Awards. She's co-producing the project, she shares in her letter, with writer and producer David Garcia, whom she met in 2017.
"We hit it off in a big way," Underwood says. "I’ve always been lucky to have a voice in the writing and recording process, but this is the first time I am this involved in the production of my music. It’s been challenging and incredibly rewarding to be involved in every aspect from start to finish. David has been an amazing teacher and partner, and I’m so proud of what we have created."
Fans know that Underwood has been working on new music; she recently shared a photo of herself in the recording studio. Whenever she releases her next album, it will be her first since she released Storyteller in 2015. In January, though, Underwood dropped a new song, "The Champion," as part of NBC's Super Bowl coverage.
"I’ve been so touched seeing how people around the world have been inspired by it and have shared their personal 'champion' stories and photos and videos," Underwood writes in her letter. "The song has become so meaningful to so many people, myself included, in ways I never could have imagined when I wrote it last year."
After Storyteller came out, Underwood spent much of 2016 touring in support of the record, and then, for the most part, took 2017 off. Underwood's 2018 calendar is still largely open, though she will headline WE Fest 2018, in Detroit Lakes, Minn., in August. She recently shared a photo of herself in rehearsals for some sort of live performance, and in her letter, she admits that she and her team are "already talking about a tour," but doesn't reveal any details.
After co-hosting the 2017 CMA Awards in November, Underwood suffered a serious fall outside her Nashville-area home that required surgery on her wrist and dozens of stitches in her face. She has been careful to conceal her face in most of her social media posts in the months since then; in fact, her recent in-studio photo is one of the few in which fans can see her unobscured face.
"My wrist is almost back to normal, about 90 percent there … and the docs say that last 10 percent will come in time. And my face has been healing pretty nicely as well. I definitely feel more like myself than I have in a while," Underwood writes in her letter. "One of the silver linings for me in this healing process is the time I’ve gotten to spend with [husband] Mike [Fisher] and [son] Isaiah. I’ve been calling it 'forced relaxation.' Sometimes I think things happen in order to make us slow down."
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