Carrie Underwood Shares Story Behind New Single, ‘Drinking Alone’

Carrie Underwood just dropped the video for her latest single, “Drinking Alone.” The song, from her 2018 Cry Pretty record, was intended to be a drinking song, without taking it to the point where Underwood couldn’t relate to or support the message.

“I had the title, just ‘Drinking Alone,’ and was writing with Brett James and David Garcia that day,” Underwood recalled on The Ty Bentli Show. “Brett was like, ‘I feel like we could do something more with that. What if it was like, ‘drinking alone together?’ I was like, ‘Ooh, I like it,’ so we ran with it, and tried to put together this whole storyline.

“I didn’t want it to be like, ‘We meet up at a bar and go home together,’ because that’s not me, on any level, and I couldn’t relate to telling that story very well,” she continued. “So it was so much about both getting over somebody. We’re just here. This is nothing, but let’s just be miserable together, and just forget about all of that and have this fun night right here in this moment, and after that, peace out. Not a thing. It still remained kind of fun and innocent, in a drinking way. We’re drinking.’”

“Drinking Alone” is part of a varied Cry Pretty record, which was a lot different for Underwood, in every way, than her 2015 Storyteller project.

“I feel like between Storyteller and Cry Pretty, there was definitely a lot of growth for me as a person – emotional growth and spiritual growth and my family,” Underwood acknowledged. “And I feel like just kind of taking more ownership in my thoughts and my feelings and my wants and my creative abilities, and just taking more ownership over all of those things, and wanting that to translate into this album. I like to take time between projects. When do you have time to live the life you’re writing about? It’s so important to me.

“I like to go on tour and when I’m out, I’m out,” she continued. “I’m on the road. We are working hard. We’re killing it. We’re doing what we do. When I write, I want to write. I want to immerse myself in that. Whatever I’m doing, I want to completely immerse myself in and that includes living a life. I just feel like that’s so important. And for me as a mom and as a wife and as a friend and daughter and all of those things, it’s just important to take a minute to live a life worth writing about.”

Underwood performed “Drinking Alone” at the CMA Awards. Download or stream the song by visiting her website.

Photo Credit: Getty / Jeff Kravitz