About halfway through Carrie Underwood’s 2012 album, Blown Away, there’s a sweet song that seems to perfectly fit the Thanksgiving holiday: “Thank God for Hometowns.”
In a video clip surrounding the release of Blown Away, the singer explained that she’d heard a demo of the song (written by Ashley Gorley, Luke Laird, and Hillary Lindsey) just before driving home to Checotah, Oklahoma, to her high school reunion.
“I listened to it, and the way things were worded, [it was] like a conversation with your mom,” she noted. “And these are totally things that my mom would say. These are totally things that would happen to me.”
The album was a roaring success thanks to hits like “Good Girl,” “Blown Away,” and “Two Black Cadillacs,” but there’s something about “Thank God for Hometowns” that still resonates with anybody who grew up in a small town, or anyone who’s heading home for the holidays.
As Underwood explained, “The line about ‘Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in when you were dying to get out.’ That’s me! That’s me being in my small town, thinking, ‘Ugh, I can’t wait to get out and see the world and move away, and be a part of something so much more interesting than my little town.’”
She added, “We all think our towns are no fun, right? There’s never anything to do in the town where you grew up. But having that song, and now me being an adult, [I love] getting able to go back, see my parents, spend time there, and feel so blessed that I grew up there. And feel so lucky. I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else. And I was dying to get out when I was a teenager, but now I’m so glad to get to go back, and I’m so glad to have reasons to go back.”