Carrie Underwood Opens up About Challenges of Singing ‘Drinking Alone’ in First Person

Carrie Underwood is a singer, songwriter, wife to Mike Fisher and mother to sons Isaiah and Elijah, and also a person of faith, with high moral values, ones she refuses to compromise in music or in life. So when she sat down with Brett James and David Garcia to write “Drinking Alone,” from her latest Cry Pretty album, Underwood worked hard to carefully tell a story without making it a song about drinking followed by a one-night stand.

“It was important to me because we’re singing this [in the] first person,” Underwood explained (via CMT). I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get drunk and go home together,’ because that’s not something that I would do.

“If it is going to be like an extreme kind of character,” she added, “I think I’d rather put it in third person, or put it in a [context where] you’re speaking about somebody completely different, not use first person.”

Underwood set the parameters for the song, especially since it was in first person, standing firm on the line she would not cross.

“You know, ‘This isn’t a thing, I’m not going home with you,’” Underwood noted. “Let’s just be here and be present and kind of get over our heartaches in the same space.’”

It was Underwood who came up with the idea for “Drinking Alone,” and decided she could make the song emotionally strong and still keep her standards.

“I had the title, and we just kind of started, ‘What does this mean?’” she recounted. “This is another one that I feel like the title could have gone to a very sad, emotional place, but me being me, I still wanted to have that strong kind of character in there. So, I love the fact that this is a break-up song. ‘I’m here at the bar drinking my pain away. You and me can hang out. Why should we both be lamenting over lost love separately? We’re both here doing the same thing. Let’s just do that together.’

“I love that the character – I was like, ‘I don’t want her going home with him,’” she continued. “I don’t want any of that. I just want it to be like, ‘Okay we’ll just hang out. We’ll drink. We’ll maybe share a corner booth kiss.’ But it’s just more about that night and that moment and that Band-Aid and then going your separate ways. ‘This isn’t a thing. I’m not looking to start a new relationship. I’m out of this one. Let’s just let whatever this is be what this is right now.’”

Photo Credit: Getty / Taylor Hill