Reba McEntire Finds Personal Connection to Current Single, 'Freedom'

Reba McEntire feels a personal connection to her current single, "Freedom." The song, from her recently-released Stronger Than the Truth album, says, "Freedom / Loving you feels like freedom / You're the red, the white, the blue / The stars that cover the scars / When we broke the shackles / And I've never been to war before / But your boots there on the floor / Are proof that I've won the battle" – a message that was all too familiar for the singer.

"When I first heard the song, I thought it was a very patriotic song," McEntire shared with PopCulture.com and other media. "I thought, 'Oh yeah, it's an anthem. We love anthems.' And the more I got to listening to it I said, 'No, it's about this woman who's had horrible luck falling in love and finding love, and now she's found the love of her life, and she's like, 'Freedom. Loving you feels like freedom.'

"And so it is an anthem, but it's an anthem about love," she added. "I did it with Kelly Clarkson at her show in Nashville and got the crowd involved – hand clapping and singing along – and it was a lot fun. It's a great song to do on stage."

McEntire, who is now happily in love with Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo after a painful divorce from her former husband, Narvel Blackstock, sang the song on stage during the 2019 ACM Awards, which she also hosted for the 16th time. But with the awards ceremony behind her, the Oklahoma native can focus on promoting Stronger Than the Truth, which is reminiscent of her own childhood.

"It goes back to the way I was raised," said McEntire of the project. "Rodeo cowgirl, raised up on a working cattle ranch, listening to stone cold country music while I was growing up. [Siblings] Pake, Suzy and I were the Singing McEntires, and we played dance halls, rodeos, rodeo dances, but you had to have something to dance to, and if you were up on stage and didn't, everybody would sit down and go, 'Hmm. Well, what we gonna do now?'

"You had to have dance songs," she continued. "So this is what I was looking for. And so I had so many people helping me look for songs, and thank God I did, because we found some great songs. [Producer] Buddy Cannon and I could have gone in and recorded another album. That's how many great songs are being written in Nashville. Kudos to the song writers."

McEntire co-wrote two of the songs on Stronger Than the Truth, "No U in Oklahoma" and "In His Mind."

"It was a lot of fun," McEntire told PopCulture.com of writing songs for the record. "I enjoy writing. I enjoy collaborating. I like working with other people. So it was really fun. But just because I write the songs does not mean that they get on my album. Only the best songs, the ones that really touch my heart get on the album."

Download "Freedom" on iTunes. Purchase Stronger Than the Truth at Reba.com.

Photo Credit: Getty/ Jeff Kravitz