The country music star Carrie Underwood is speaking out to reveal the surprising reason that she nearly passed on her hit song “Before He Cheats.” The song has become one of the biggest successes of Underwood’s career. That’s why it’s come as a shock that she nearly turned it down.
Underwood Sounds Off
Underwood, 42 told People Magazine that she nearly passed on “Before He Cheats” because she felt that it was “too aggressive.”
“Because I was like a sweet farm girl on [American Idol] — and I hope that’s who I still am — but it was almost, ‘Maybe we don’t do this song,'” Underwood said. “But everybody loved it so much, we went for it and it … worked. But, yeah, 20 years later, we still see people perform it, and it’s a lot of fun.”
“Before He Cheats” was featured on Underwood’s debut album “Some Hearts” back in 2005. It was then re-released as a single in 2006.
Underwood went on to say that twenty years later, the song still holds up. Indeed, younger generations of country music continue to find it. These young fans include her own son.
“I recently was vacuuming my house, and when I turned the vacuum off [there was] a noise coming from my bedroom, and I was like, ‘It’s music,'” Underwood explained. “And I was like, ‘That’s ‘Before He Cheats.’ And I walk in there and my 6-year-old is lying on my bed watching my music video. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Nothing.'”
Underwood added that after finding the iconic song, her son ‘started going down the rabbit hole” of some of her other older music videos. Underwood and her former professional hockey player husband Mike Fisher, 45, are parents to sons Isaiah, 9, and Jacob, 7.
‘I Feel Very Blessed…’
Underwood skyrocketed to fame when she won season four of American Idol back in 2005. Twenty years later, Underwood admitted that “it is absolutely impossible to wrap my head around” the successes that she has achieved since then.
“I feel very blessed that I’ve had so much support over the years from just so many fans,” she confessed. “And I feel very undeserving, but it’s still really incredible, and even just thinking about it makes me emotional.”
Underwood also said that “it’s been fun to reflect” on her past discography. In fact, she’s been tapping into this during performances.
“We’ve kind of started pulling out some of those songs just to play in show form for some recent shows, and I feel like the fans are liking that,” she explained. And I’m liking that too.”
Underwood wants fans to know that she’s still the same girl who won American Idol decades ago. However, she also wants it to be known that she’s “grown.”
“I feel like my voice has grown, my musicality, my songwriting, my performance abilities,” Underwood concluded. “I just — I feel better. I’m at that point in my life and in my career where, in all of those things, I feel like my skillset keeps growing, which is fun.”
Underwood is one of the most talented country music stars working in the industry today. In the end, we’re just glad that she didn’t pass on “Before He Cheats,” because nobody could have performed it as well as she did.
God bless you, Carrie Underwood!