An old flame has burned out, but the smoke hasn’t cleared on Carrie Underwood’s latest release “Give Her That.” The reflective ballad, set to appear on the deluxe edition of Denim and Rhinestones on Sept. 22, digs deep into the details to remind a past lover that even though he’s moved on, the singer has left an undeniable and irreplaceable mark. (Underwood also recently left a mark on Guns N’ Roses fans when she stunned the hard-rock crowd with a cover of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades.”)
“‘Give Her That’ is a story about a relationship that is no longer. The person’s kind of moved on and it’s like, ‘I’ve seen who you’re with. She’s beautiful, she’s perfect. I’ll give her that. But you can’t give her the time that we spent together,’” Underwood explained in a video breaking down the song. “And I feel like everybody’s kind of got some of that in our lives, you know? If you’re stalking somebody on socials and you’re like, ‘Yeah they’ve moved on. Of course, really glad for them. That’s great. But I had him first.’”
Underwood penned “Give Her That” alongside David Garcia and Lydia Vaughan. In the breakdown, she explained that their session together produced two separate versions of the song, “one that was super chill, super stripped-down and one that had a little more bass-y kind of groove to it.”
They landed on the stripped-down version, which the singer added “felt more right to the song,” which relies on sentimental memories to really tug at the heartstrings.
“I can’t deny she’s got a lot of things that I’ll never have and that’s a fact/Even a diamond slid it on her hand, go on and give her that,” Underwood sings. “But you can’t give her that old school Skynyrd tee that I still sleep in/Your mama’s necklace, ’cause she wanted me to keep it/Every kiss, every minute that you spent on me/Every memory, you can’t give her those.”
It’s a more somber record than the album’s other deluxe tracks, like “Out of That Truck” and “Take Me Out.” Speaking to Rolling Stone last year about Denim & Rhinestones, Underwood shared: “I wanted to have a good time and sing songs that made me happy and have a blast when I’m onstage. We’ve done so much in the past, with my dramatic phases and different feels of what life is like. I wanted [this album] to be lighter and happier.”