Fresh from her 15th Academy of Country Music award, her 3rd for Entertainer of the Year (having already made history as the first female to win twice - and now the only female ever to win three times!) Ms. Carrie Underwood joins us on this episode of LOVE SOMEONE with Delilah to talk about her new Christmas album, "My Gift." I'm so thrilled that our holiday playlist is expanding with this -'cuz after the year we've had, we can all use a little Christmas now!
We're talking about the inspiration behind the album, its name, a very special guest appearance, and Carrie's Tupperware drawer! I know we've just welcomed autumn, but while enjoying the falling leaves, pumpkin patch excursions, and all the glory of the season my friends... get Carrie's Christmas album, "My Gift" and unwrap it right away! Thanks for joining us today! ~ Delilah
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Autumn has arrived, and with it all the good stuff like thick, snuggly sweaters, boots and blue jeans. Pumpkins spice everything, as well as everyone not so silently wishing to fast forward to Christmas and New Year so we can say goodbye to twenty twenty. Today's podcast is going to enable that emotion more than just a little bit, because I'm going to be talking to a music artist that is launching her first ever Christmas album, and it's full. I gotta sneak peek, I got a sneak preview, I got to listen to it. I listened to it over and over. It is full of beautifully inspired songs, combining traditional favorites that celebrate the miracle of the Christ Child's birth and several new original songs. I'm telling you it might be my favorite Christmas album ever. It's that good. Fresh from her fifteenth American Country Music Award, her third for Entertainer of the Year, having already made history as the first female to win twice, now the only female ever to win three times, MS Carrie Underwood joins us to talk about her new Christmas album, My Gift. Right after I give my podcast sponsor a well deserved shout out. You know who. I'm referring to the helpful folks who help you get things done at the Home Depot. With their new phone app, they have become as on demand as a great podcast. Have you downloaded the Home Depot app yet? I suggested, because they've made it so easy for you to instantly fine the product you need to start or finish your project at home. I have a hard time finishing things I've started, so this is a good thing. Within a few minutes, they'll have it ready at curbside for you. You can use the camera on your phone to search for something you need to replace or update, whether it's a faucet or something out in the garden, a rake or or a hose or something. They've got it all and it's all on your phone. The Home Depot. How doers get more done? Terry Underwood, welcome, Thank you for being here with us today. This is your first Christmas album, right it is. I've had the chance over the years to kind of do some some Christmas songs and events and stuff like that here and there, but this is my first like full Christmas album. You told me earlier that this was actually birth back in tw nineteen for release this year. Could you have ever imagined when you first started putting this together what a bizarre year we would have and what a much needed gift. I mean, did you pick out the title beforehand or no? Um? When we started, you know, after the Cry Pretty Tour UM wrapped last year, it was kind of like, I was like, I want to do a Christmas album next and I want to do it. I want to do it a sap, you know, and I want to do it next year because it just seems like the perfect the perfect time in my busy world to do a Christmas album, which is something I've always wanted to do. UM. So we we got the wheels turning and you know, started working on it and laying the foundation, and then everything happened and you know, February March ish and everything got shut down and um due to COVID and UM. You know, it's just all about what we we got to keep moving forward. You know, we've already worked on it and and got a lot of the foundation LAIDs, so let's just figure it out and throughout the whole process. A Little drummer Boy was a song that I knew I I wanted to sing it's one of my my favorites because I loved the story behind it. Um, little boy wants to give a gift to Jesus and he doesn't have anything because he's he's poor, and uh, he takes a gift that was given to him by God, the gift of music, the gift of drumming, and uh, he wants to take that to Jesus. And I just love that whole story and and through that, the album titled My Gift kind of came to mind because that is that's my gift as far as that's what I get to do. You know that love of music, um, and music in general is just is a gift to us all, and you know that's something that I want to hopefully give back, give back in a in a positive way. Uh. Then that led me to asking my son to sing on it with me, because he's just such a sweet little guy and the kind of kid that would definitely make something and want to take it to someone and be so proud of it, because that's how a child's mind works. And I love that. And your little boy's name is his name is Isaiah. Uh. I couldn't wait for you to say that because my firstborn son's name is Isaiah, and it means it means gift from God, God's warrior. Did you know that? Yes? I did, and that's why we named him that. How appropriate. And now he's singing with you and giving the gift of music to all of us. How perfect? I mean, it's like full circle. Yes. And and he even at five years old, I feel like he has such a an understanding. Sometimes the things that he says are the questions that he asks, it's just like wow. You you sit around and you think about this, and it seems like he already has such a spiritual understanding. And um, he's he's such a sinker kid, and I love that about him. And you know, I wasn't sure how he would be in the studio. And you know, he he loves music. He loves to sing. Um. He has such a mind for lyrics, which I find so interesting because I feel like, even as a little kid, I just knew the words to songs and he's the same way. So it's fun to see his love of music, you know, start to develop. And um, I had no idea how he would be in the studio, but he was right at home. He walked in, he put the little headphones on and got in front of the microphone and um, you know saying his a little hard out. So it was so much fun for me to get to experience that with him, something that I love so much, um and have that moment with him. And I mean, he did such an incredible, incredible job. So the album is called My Gift. It dropped on the September, which we're all happy about because we we need some holiday cheer. We need that um you know, Jennie and I call it hot cocoa and fuzzy mittens. Even if you're in Florida. You need hot cocoa and fuzzy mintens this year, especially because there's so much divide ausiveness in our world, so much anger and animosity, so much fear. I think especially fear has gripped people and stolen their joy, so much frustration with homeschooling, and yeah that that we need a little Christmas and we need a little joy and we need hope. Yes, I've always been um, you know, in previous years, whenever you go to the store or um, I mean anywhere really the Walgreens down the street, you know, you you walk in in like October and see um see Christmas recreations. And I would always be one of those people that was a little bit annoyed that, you know it was it was so it was too early for Christmas, because Christmas means you got to get the presents for everybody, you gotta figure out travel plants and who you're gonna see when you're gonna see him, and everybody would have Christmas parties that you know, you're trying to bring stuff for and it just becomes a lot for so many people and definitely for me around the holidays. And this year is so different because it is like, bring on Christmas, you know, and we know this Christmas probably isn't going to look like Christmas is past, and you know, forget about those holiday parties and it's it's going to be one of those things. I feel like that it's like, you know, you miss you missed the way you missed, the way it all was, the way it all used to be and hopefully the way it will be again. But in the meantime, I think that the goodness and the the ability to not have to do all that stuff and to go all those places and to slow down might be a gift in and of itself. I agree. I agree, And get to have those warm, fuzzy feelings and you know, the hope and the joy and um, spend time with your immediate family and there are blessings in in everything. You know, you just have to look for him sometimes. So what has been Carrie Underwood for you? The hardest part of what's been the the hardest pill to swallow, the hardest adjustment to make. I mean, it's got to be hard to not be out performing because I know that, at least from what it looks like being in the audience, you love to entertain people. I mean, you are so filled with energy when you're on stage, and the energy you're putting out is such a powerful You're tiny, but it's like massively huge energy you're sharing with all of us. Has it been hard to not get to do that? Well? My my personality is a bit uh. I'm a planner. I like it when things go to plan. I like to know what's next. I want to know what I'm doing tomorrow, next week, next month, in six month. Um. You know, I'm I'm very Taipei that way, and I like to know what my kids are doing and how how their lives are shaken out. And um, this year for me has just been, um, just a year like everybody of of curveballs, and you know, it's it's kind of forced forced me to figure out new ways to do things, which honestly, again in finding blessings and the strangest of times, you know, I feel like that has been. Um, it's been good for me to figure out new ways to do things and to keep making music and being creative and doing what I love and and just roll with it because there's nothing you can do, you know, so you want to keep moving forward, so you just figure it out. So that's that's definitely been, you know, the the hardest part. But also it's been a good teacher. See I'm I'm the opposite. I hate having to plan things out in advance. When I'm asked to do like a speaker circuit or a book tour or something, and they're like, Okay, we need to know what if we can schedule this for February, Like, what are you talking about? I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. How can I commit to something a year or two years out? I can't. I can't do it. So for me. It's been really nice to not have to have that. But for somebody like you who's a planner, and it sounds like you're very organized, Like do you know where your tupperware lids are? That matches the containers? I do everything stucked up nicely, and uh in in rows and the big bowls. There's like bowls and the bowls all the way to the little bowl on the top. I knew it. And you know where socks are the match too, huh? I do? I do. I am constantly fighting a toddler though, who loves to go get in the tupperware drawer, so he I have to kind of let him destroy drawers every once in a while so that I could make dinner, and then I have to go pick them all up and put them all back the way they they were years ago. I found the key to that. I have a drawer that is designated, it's a whole cupboard in the kitchen, but not under my feet that is designated just for the toddlers, and everything else is off limits. And I'll pick up you know, stuff at the dollar store just to throw in there, just to surprise him, so it's you know, it's new every now and again and that way. That's the designated toddler cupboard. You might try it. It might work. That's a good idea, it really is. I have that kid though. That's uh, he gets quiet. Wait a minute, where did you go? What are you doing? Yeah? It was a minute. They're quiet. Yeah, Carrie Underwood, My Gift available now out, incredibly beautiful collection. How many of the songs on it are new because some of them? A lot of them are standards. I think we ended up with four and my favorite Hallelujah with John Legend. Yes, you were telling me earlier that you two ended up recording it together apart. Do you think you'll ever get to sing it together together? I sure hope so. Um. And you know a lot of a lot of My Gift was was done that way. My producer was in l A and uh, you know, he was on zoom with me, as I I say, he was in the studio with me, like in the room and the vocal booth, and um, I would I would sing and you know, try not to pay attention to him and then be like, how how did that sound? Because he had kind of a he could hear what I was doing in good speakers where he was. But it was just that thing of of figuring out new ways to work and John was so I recorded my part first, and then he went in and recorded his part in l A and then I went back in and and ended up doing some harmonies and stuff like that on top of what he did. So it was it was a process and definitely a different way to record, but it was really good. And I like to say, throughout this whole process of making this album, you know, I feel like it's really been watched over. You know, the fact that we started working on it at the end of last year, the fact that I asked Greg Wells to be my producer on this project. I feel like if I if we waited a little longer, if I picked a different producer. Um, you know, even things like when when John sent made that song, you know, it's just the perfect puzzle piece, the last puzzle piece that I was like, oh my gosh, Now I couldn't imagine this album without that song. So, you know, there's just been so many, so many things that have happened throughout the whole process that I feel like it's just been watched over and we've managed to uh to make this you know, this album that I'm I'm so proud of and it was such a bright spot in my year, and I hope we can help provide the part of the soundtrack to what what it has to be a good Christmas. It just has to be. Well, We're going to make it a good Christmas. We're gonna learn to roll, We're going to learn to adapt, We're going to remind people why we celebrate Christmas. When I got the album, I got a sneak preview. I didn't it didn't have any of the information of the tracks. It was just the tracks. I think if I had opened it on my computer, I could have found all the information. But I opened it on my phone, and I was in my car, and yeah, and I was listening, and with each song I listened to, my heart felt more at peace and more joy. And then another song would come on and I would think, oh my gosh, I couldn't feel any happier than I felt just listening to that one. And then Hallelujah came on and I was raising my hands and praising God while you and John Legend we're singing, and the joy care I don't know how to describe it. It was like bubbling out of me the joy I felt, and I just I want people to feel that joy this year. We need it so desperately, we do. Um. I felt the same way when I was recording it. You know. Um there'd be there'll be times when I'd have to like pause because I would either feel so happy or does love love the lyrics that I was singing so much that I would get a little choked up and kind of have to have a have a second to gather myself. But it was just, you know, it was a pleasure to make and still get to create and you know this, uh, this thing that I've been wanting to do for so long, make a Christmas album, Um, you know, get to do it in the strangest of years. It was just a great heartwarming thing for me to be able to do. So I hope that does come through in when people listen to them. You know the Book of Esther in the Bible, her uncle Mordecai says to her, you were born for such a time as this, and that verse keeps coming back to my heart over and over again. This year. I know that everything that that that that has happened in my career has led me to be here on the air for such a time as this, And that's how I felt listening to this whole album from beginning to end. I was I was weeping it silent night, the like it it was birth, and you carry underwood for such a time as this, for this Christmas season when we so desperately need that gift of God's peace. Thank you for that. I love that. I mean, I know there's a lot of reasons that you're here, and a lot of reasons your music has blessed us, But that's how I felt listening to this Christmas album and hearing the lyrics. So Merry Christmas, and thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you too, alright, God bless you, Han, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you for all of that carry. We are so thrilled that you have created this new Christmas music for us. We need it, We need it now. We are grateful for expanding our holiday playlists, bringing holiday cheer, talking about peace on earth and goodwill to all in the process. And my friends, if you haven't done so already, get Carrie's Christmas album My gift and unwrap it right away, pick up, find your path, and download her fitness app fit fifty two. You'll be on your way to a healthier, happier, more energetic version of you. For the holiday season and the new year ahead, and in the midst of it all, remember your fortunes, Remember how blessed we are. Be generous to others, and take some time to slow down and love someone