Country star Carrie Underwood has 13 songs on her sixth studio album, “Cry Pretty,” released on Sept. 14. But two tracks in particular have been receiving a lot of attention.
“Love Wins” is a soaring ballad about people coming together in a divisive culture. “The Bullet” is a devastating account of the aftermath of gun violence. Although this inspired publications such as USA Today to deem the album “vaguely political,” neither song directly addresses politics. Many news stories about the album highlight those two as standouts, but in interviews, Underwood is careful to emphasize that her music is simply about hoping for a better world.
“Honestly, when we were writing it, it was a little scary, because I was like, whatever we say, I just want to make sure people see this for what it is and what we’re trying to say,” she told journalist Hunter Kelly about “Love Wins.” “Because it’s so easy, I feel like, these days to, like, skim the surface of something, draw some crazy conclusion that’s not correct, and then make a thing out of it. Above all, we want people to feel hopeful. We weren’t trying to speak negatively about our world, because we live in an amazing world, too.”
“The Bullet,” she explained to the Daily Telegraph, was partly motivated by the horrific aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre: “It’s a beautiful and powerful song, and I thought for a long time whether or not I was the one to deliver its message. Unfortunately, too many events have happened and not just on a grand scale … Any word I say right now is gonna be wrong (laughs).”