Things are getting intense in Carrie Underwood-land. While walking the red carpet at the 2017 Grammys, the country singer let drop that she's a fan of murder — in song, that is.
"You can kill a guy in a country music song and it's okay," she told Ryan Seacrest. "I love country music."
So...what does that mean exactly? Well, while the comment might SOUND nuts, it's actually not. After all, Johnny Cash famously "killed a man in Reno just to watch him die" in "Folsom Prison Blues," and that won him the Best Country Vocal Performance, Male at the 1969 Grammy Awards.
And there's actually a long history of country singers crooning what's commonly known as "murder ballads." What's different about Carrie Underwood, is that in old school country, she'd have been the murdered, rather than the murderer. In the past, murder ballads usually killed off the woman. But recently, female country artists have turned that trope on its head, reclaiming agency as the killers, rather than the victims — think "Goodbye Earl," by the Dixie Chicks.
Carrie's single "Two Black Cadillacs," referred to two women — a wife and a mistress — who murder a man who has misled them both.
"And the preacher said he was a good man
And his brother said he was a good friend
But the women in the two black veils didn’t bother to cry
Bye bye, bye bye
Yeah they took turns laying a rose down
Threw a handful of dirt into the deep ground
He’s not the only one who had a secret to hide
Bye bye, bye bye, bye Bye"
And his brother said he was a good friend
But the women in the two black veils didn’t bother to cry
Bye bye, bye bye
Yeah they took turns laying a rose down
Threw a handful of dirt into the deep ground
He’s not the only one who had a secret to hide
Bye bye, bye bye, bye Bye"
Carrie — nominated for Best Solo Country Performance for “Church Bells" — loves her metaphors in music, as we learned when she recorded "Smoke Break" and then admitted she doesn't smoke. Likelihood she'll kill anyone? Roughly the same as that she'll take up smoking.