Carrie Underwood loves a good story song. But she also loves to expound on those stories in her videos. These three Carrie Underwood videos all tell a wild story.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Before He Cheats”
Out in 2006, “Before He Cheats” is a No. 1 single for Underwood. Written by Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear, the song is on Underwood’s freshman Some Hearts record.
The video for “Before He Cheats” begins with Underwood keying a truck and hitting it with a baseball bat. As the video unfolds, Underwood is walking through downtown Nashville, after destroying his truck, when she runs into the cheater.
Underwood recently revealed that she almost passed on recording “Before He Cheats” because she thought it was too aggressive.
“I was like a sweet farm girl on [American Idol] — and I hope that’s who I still am, but it was almost, ‘Maybe we don’t do this song,’” she admits to People.
“Blown Away”
“Blown Away” is the title track of Underwood’s fourth studio album. Also written by Tompkins and Kear, “Blown Away” tells the story of a young girl who allows her abusive father to perish in a tornado, since he is “passed out on the couch,” while she takes shelter.
Thanks to advanced technology, the “Blown Away” video shows Underwood surviving a tornado, while her home, with her father inside, is destroyed.
“She’s not a heroine ’cause she hasn’t done anything,” Underwood says of “Blown Away”. “But it’s just such a visual song. And you feel bad for her. And then you feel good for her when the song is over, that a horrible, negative part of her life is over with, and she can start over because she made it. So it’s just this beautiful movie in song form. It’s dramatic.”
“Two Black Cadillacs”
Right after “Blown Away”, Underwood released “Two Black Cadillacs”. A sordid story of a wife at her husband’s funeral, where he encounters his mistress, as the song unfolds, it’s revealed that the two plotted together for his demise. Underwood wrote “Two Black Cadillacs” with Hillary Lindsey and Josh Kear.
Loosely based on the Stephen King novel Christine, the video shows Underwood in a vintage black Cadillac. As the song goes on, the same Cadillac is seen running over her philandering husband, with his mistress beside her. Maintaining the Christine novel, the car then corrects itself, so no damage is evident.
“I love videos that take a different direction or have a plot twist. I don’t want to just see what I hear; I want it to add something to the song, not just retell the story,” Underwood says (via The Boot). She adds that the idea for the video was hers.
“So when we started to plan this video, I met with the director and the other people who were involved, and we came up with the whole concept,” recalls the singer. “I found out that the director and I were both big fans of the thing we modeled it after. It turned out great. We filmed it in the Nashville area. The day was very gloomy and rainy, which made it a perfect day for a video like this.”
Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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