Carnival Ride
Carrie Underwood
Released: October 23, 2007
Released: October 23, 2007
by Dylan Scott
Carrie Underwood is an American Country Singer, who took the music industry by storm when she won the fourth season of American Idol in 2005.
Prior to winning the reality singing competition, Underwood was living the simple life on her family's farm in the small ton of Checotah, Oklahoma. A senior in college, about to wrap up her degree in broadcasting, Underwood heard about the American Idol auditions in St. Louis, Missouri. Along with her mother, Underwood made the drive from rural Oklahoma all the way to St. Louis. This would prove to be the drive that would change her life forever.
Fast forward just over a year from her audition and Carrie Underwood became one of the greatest musicians of the time. Her debut album, Some Hearts sold over 300,000 copies within the first week of it's release and produced what are perhaps Underwood's greatest smash hits of all time Before He Cheats and Jesus, Take the Wheel. The album went on to win her a slew of awards including Top New Female Vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards in 2006, the awards show which she made history at when she became the first woman in Country Music History to win Entertainer of the Year twice.
In 2007, Carrie then went on to release this album, Carnival Ride which can be found talked about in more detail in the "WHAT?" section of this page.
Underwood's success continues to this day with the releases of her four other studio albums off her label Arista Nashville, Play On (2009), Blown Away (2012), Greatest Hits: Decade Number 1 (2014), and Storyteller (2015). Over the course of all her releases, Underwood has produced 14 number one hits.
Carrie is known as being the Country Crossover Queen of this generation as she combines elements of country music with pop music, which has proved successful as she reached an enormous audience, as well as receiving airtime on both country and pop radio.
Carnival Ride is Underwood's second release, but her first release that is deemed a concept album. What distinguished this album from her previous release is that she was much more involved in the writing process, as she cowrote four of the albums tracks including: So Small, All-American Girl, Crazy Dreams, and Last Name, three of which reached number one. Mark Bright produced the record, and it was recorded in Nashville from 2006-2007. It was then released on October 23, 2007. Carnival Ride debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold over 527,000 upon its release and to date has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. This album again won her a slew of awards, including two Grammy Awards. Two the tracks on this album Flat on the Floor and I Told You So were both previously recorded by other artists (Katrina Elam and Randy Travis) but still gained Underwood a great deal of success. I Told You So was released as Underwood's fifth and final single and a version in which she duets with Travis was released. A year after the release of Carnival Ride, Underwood was inducted in the Grand Old Opry on May 10, 2008. Also in 2008, Underwood embarked on the Carnival Ride Tour, which spanned throughout the United States and Canada.
"You step onto this ride called life, and it’s a crazy thing you don’t know anything about, but you get on it anyway. You do what you can to lean different directions to try and get it to go where you want it to go, but you can’t stop it – it just keeps moving. That’s why Carnival Ride works as my album title, because it describes the wonderful craziness that I’ve been through over the past couple years." (Carrie Underwood, 2007)
In other words, the songs on Carnival Ride are not arranged in a way that tell a story as you move through each one. Rather, the concept is more of an overarching theme of the album as a whole. A theme that describes Carrie's life experiences as well as the way her life has changed after winning American Idol causing her to rocket into superstardom. Although she is writing about her life and experiences, it is clear she was very intentional in still putting songs on the album that they could relate their own life and experiences too. However, with that being said it is evident that although this is the concept of the album, it is clear that several songs on the album may not fit the overall concept as much and were put on the album perhaps to be released as a single (i.e. Flat On the Floor, Just a Dream, I Know You Won't, Last Name, I Told You So, and Twisted). This method of creating single driven music ready for radio and putting it on concept album's is a trend that is common in today's music.
The album cover is rather simple and features Underwood almost wrapped up in what appears to be varying shades of yellow, orange, and white drapes. It almost has this sense of calmness and serenity about it. This seems a little confusing, as the album title is Carnival Ride and when you think Carnival Ride, you may think crazy rollercoaster-esque with many different colors and shapes. However, what I think Carrie's intent with a very simple and visually pleasing cover was to remember to stay calm and grounded despite the crazy "Carnival Ride" you may be on.
The following section of this page is a personal breakdown and analysis of each song. You can click on each song title, which will redirect you a link to listen to the song. The songs in Italic and Bolded mean that they were released as a single. In order the songs released as a single are: So Small, All-American Girl, Last Name, Just a Dream, and I Told You So. Lastly, the album runtime is 50 minutes.
3) So Small
4) Just a Dream
Baby, why'd you leave me, why'd you have to go
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I can't even breathe
It's like I'm looking from a distance,
Standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now,
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream
Got it all figured out inside of my head
There's a bag packed up at the foot of my bed
You say the word, baby I'm all set
Cover our tracks, tell a couple white lies
Make sure we got a good alibi and by the time they catch on,
we'll be outa their sight
Long gone baby
6) Crazy Dreams
Hello, you long shots, you dark-horse runners
Hairbrush singers, dashboard drummers
Hello, you wild magnolias just waiting to bloom
There's a little bit of all that inside of me and you
Thank God even crazy dreams come true
I've stood at the bottom of some walls
I thought I couldn't climb
I felt like Cinderella at the ball
Just running out of time
So I know how it feels to be afraid
And think that it's all gone and slip away
Hold on
Hold on
You say you'll call, but I know you
You say you're coming home, but I know you
You say you'll call, but I know you won't
You say you'll call, but I know you wont
8) Last Name
You can hold any girl that you like
Fall in love when it's easy at night
But when you wake up wondering why
She ain't ever something better
There's once in a lifetime
And there's once in a while
And the difference between the two
Is about a million miles
10) I Told You So
If I told you that I realized you're all I ever wanted
And it's killin' me to be so far away.
Would you tell me that you loved me too and would we cry together?
Or would you simply laugh at me and say
(Chorus) "I told you so, oh I told you so
I told you some day you'd come crawling back and asking me to take you in
I told you so, but you had to go
Now I found somebody new and you will never break my heart in two again".
I close my eyes and I kiss that frog
Each time finding
The more boys I meet, The more I love my dog
12) Twisted
It's twisted
Messed up
And the more I think about it
It's crazy but so what
I may never understand it
I'm caught up and I'm hanging on
I'm gonna love you even if its wrong
I don't know what it is, I'm flying high, but I'm wondering why I'm sinking on this ship going down.
Life keeps on moving anyway.
God put us here on this carnival ride.
We close our eyes, never knowing where it'll take us next.
Babies are born, and at the same time, someone's taking their last breath.
"You step onto this ride called life, and it’s a crazy thing you don’t know anything about, but you get on it anyway. You do what you can to lean different directions to try and get it to go where you want it to go, but you can’t stop it – it just keeps moving. That’s why Carnival Ride works as my album title, because it describes the wonderful craziness that I’ve been through over the past couple years." (Carrie Underwood, 2007)