Carrie Underwood Reveals the One Song She Worried Would Taint Her ‘Sweet Farm Girl’ Reputation

Carrie Underwood was seemingly concerned about her image aligning with her music when she was starting her career.

In an interview with People in November, published last week, the country star, 42, revealed she initially had some hesitation about singing her hit track “Before He Cheats,” in which she sings about keying an ex’s car and slashing his tires.

“I remember even when we were talking about recording that song, it was kind of like, ‘Oh, is this too aggressive? Is this too…'” she told the outlet.

“Because 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,'” Underwood continued.

“But everybody loved it so much, we went for it and it … worked,” she explained. “But, yeah, 20 years later, we still see people perform it, and it’s a lot of fun.”

The song — which was written by Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear — was released as a single on Underwood’s debut studio album, Some Hearts, in 2005, after she won American Idol that year. It also earned Underwood a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, and the songwriters won a Grammy for Best Country Song.

The “Jesus, Take the Wheel” singer — who shares sons Isaiah, 10, and Jacob, 7, with husband Mike Fisher — said even her youngest son Jacob discovered the song.

“I recently was vacuuming my house, and when I turned the vacuum off [there was] a noise coming from my bedroom and I was like, ‘It’s music.’ And I was like, ‘That’s “Before He Cheats,'” she recalled. “And I walk in there and my [son] is lying on my bed watching my music video. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Nothing.’ Watching him discover that … he started going down the rabbit hole of my old music videos.”