Carrie Underwood’s Favorite Lyrics (And Why She Never Performs Them Live)

If you’re looking to see Carrie Underwood sing her all-time favorite lyrics on stage anytime soon, you’re out of luck. As she recently explained during a quick backstage interview with Good Morning America in August 2024, the emotional power that made the country superstar fall in love with the song is the same reason why she never includes it in her live performances.

The new American Idol judge’s favorite lyrics come from her 2012 release, ‘Blown Away.’ The album marked a turning point in the singer’s career from sun-soaked country pop to substantial storytelling that flirted with darker themes like grief, abuse, and murderous scorned women.

Carrie Underwood’s Favorite Lyrics Make It Hard to Perform Live

During a backstage interview at Good Morning America’s Summer Concert series, Carrie Underwood revealed her favorite lyrics are from her 2012 ballad “Forever Changed.” She added, “I didn’t write it. I wish I had. But it’s one of my absolute favorite songs I have ever recorded. It makes me cry. I’ve never performed it live because it’s just too special, and I will bawl and not make it through. But I love it so much.”

Songwriters Tom Douglas, James T. Slater, and Hillary Lindsey penned Underwood’s favorite track. (Lindsey was also on the songwriting team behind Underwood’s breakthrough hit, “Jesus Take the Wheel.”) The heartwarming ballad tells the story of a young couple falling in love in the fire of July. They have a baby the following year. Eventually, the woman of the couple—once the young pretty bride of the first verse—develops dementia. The narrator of the song is the couple’s daughter.

In a 2012 interview with NPR’s Guy Raz, Underwood explained that the songwriting team based “Forever Changed” on one of the writers’ mothers, who had Alzheimer’s. She admitted that she felt like including the song in her live shows “would be messing up the song if I did that. It’s one that you listen to in a quiet moment, you know, in a quiet setting and where you can really dive into the words. I just don’t feel it’s right in a giant arena setting.”

The Song Has Been A Long-Time Favorite For the Country Star

By the time Carrie Underwood was sharing her all-time favorite lyrics with Good Morning America, she had nine studio albums and almost two decades’ worth of hits under her belt. With so many new songs to choose from (and life experiences to shift perspective), one might assume the superstar’s answer to which lyrics are her favorite would change over the years. But Underwood has long been a champion of the sentimental track.

In a 2012 interview on Underwood’s YouTube channel, the American Idol alum said, “I don’t feel like we get a lot of songs like this in our careers and in our lives. It describes perfectly another time and another place and another era of these innocent two people that meet and create this life. The song is written from the daughter’s perspective, my perspective. It’s about all those changes in life. Those major changes in life, getting married, having a baby, and then passing on.”

“I don’t want to say it’s a sad song,” Underwood continued. “Because even though I cry when I listen to it or when I try to sing it, and I’ve heard it how many times, it’s not a sad song. It’s a beautiful song about those big moments in our lives that change who we are forever. The end, when it says forever loved, it just melts me every time.”

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