Carrie Underwood has spent 20 years as one of country music's darlings, but she does have a dark side, at least in music. In addition to songs like "All-American Girl," "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and more, Underwood has also released several songs that are surprisingly dark.
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We picked four of our favorite Carrie Underwood songs that are very, very dark.
1. "Church Bells"
"Church Bells" might sound like a feel-good song, but it has a very dark story. Written by Zach Crowell, Brett James and Hillary Lindsey, the song is on Underwood's 2015 Storyteller album. "Church Bells" is about a woman named Jenny, who married into money and seems to have the perfect life, but is secretly the victim of domestic abuse. Unfortunately for her perpetrator, she takes matters into her own hands.
"Jenny slipped something in his Tennessee whiskey," Underwood sings. "No lawman was ever gonna find / And how he died is still a mystery / But he hit a woman for the very last time."
"I was drawn to it because I love story songs, obviously, but I also love [songs that] empower women," Underwood says (via The Boot). "I wouldn't ever want any woman to feel like she'd have to go and shoot her husband -- that should go without saying, but I'll go ahead and say it. ... A lot of songs, or a lot of movies or stories or whatever, people have to be pushed to their limits to act and to find that inner strength."
2. "Dirty Laundry"
Right after "Church Bells" became a No. 1 hit, Underwood released "Dirty Laundry," which also has a dark ending. Crowell and Lindsey also wrote "Dirty Laundry," adding Ashley Gorley to this one.
In "Dirty Laundry," a woman discovers her husband's alleged affair, due to the wrong shade of lipstick and cheap perfume. While it never explicitly says what happens to the philanderer, Underwood does sing, "All those midnights sneaking in, 'I'm late again, oh, I'm so sorry' / All the Ajax in the world ain't gonna clean your dirty laundry."
Fortunately, Underwood resonated with the song because of household chores, and not her relationship with her husband, Mike Fisher.
"I feel like I do laundry every day," Underwood says. "I'm not sure where it all comes from ... I'm really not sure how we have so much."
3. "Two Black Cadillacs"
"Two Black Cadillacs" is a dark song that was actually written by Underwood, along with Lindsey and Josh Kear. From Underwood's 2012 Blown Away album, the song is about two women, one a wife and one a mistress, who meet for the first time at the man's funeral.
"It was the first and the last time they saw each other face to face," Underwood sings. "They shared a crimson smile and just walked away / And left the secret at the grave."
"It was so much fun to write and just be in that room, and we didn't really know what to expect or where we were headed or what we would end up with," Underwood tells CBS News.
"It's just drama," she continues. "It's drama, and it's dark, but it's also - you have to listen to the whole thing. You're sucked in, from the beginning, from the music, and it's just, you know somethin's gonna happen."
4. "Blown Away"
Someone dies in "Blown Away," but it isn't a wayward husband. Instead, it's an abusive father, who is left to perish in a tornado. Underwood, who is from Oklahoma, convincingly sings "There's not enough rain in Oklahoma / To wash the sins out of that house / There's not enough wind in Oklahoma / To rip the nails out of the past."
Kear wrote the song with Chris Tompkins, with Underwood in mind. Fortunately, she loved the song.
"The song is a story about a girl and her father," Underwood says (via Songfacts). "The song describes him as a mean old mister. And you can kind of make that as bad, I guess, as you want it to be. You know, the daughter wishes that - she can feel a storm coming, and she just wishes it would wash her past away. And in doing so, take her father along. So it's a very just deep, dark story, and so visual."
