In 2017, Carrie Underwood suffered an injury to her face that required at least 40 stitches. In an interview with Vulture, the country singer says the facial injury affected her ability to sing for a while.
Carrie suffered the injury after tripping down the stairs of her house on her way to walk her dogs. Shortly afterward, she began recording her latest album, Cry Pretty.
"I had wanted to be in the studio sooner than I was, actually recording these songs, but I had stitches inside my mouth, outside my mouth. It was physically impossible," Carrie said.
Carrie recalled how certain sounds were difficult to say, including her m's, b's, and p's. She chalks up the difficulty to age, in addition to the injury.
"Things change just as you get older; your muscles change," she said.
Despite the difficulty, Carrie says she chose not to use a vocal coach.
"I feel like you just kind of have to find your way through it," she said. And that's exactly what she did.
Last November, Carrie Underwood revealed to fans that she'd been injured in an accident. She broke her wrist and had to have at least 40 stitches on her face.
Afterward, Carrie disappeared from the spotlight for a while. She warned fans that she might "look a bit different" when they saw her again.
Instead, the scar on her face was barely visible except in a few photos, where you can see a faint line from her nose to her lip. Some folks began to accuse her of making a big deal out of nothing.
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But in an interview with Vulture, Carrie revealed that, noticeable or not, the injury did have an impact on her ability to sing.
"I felt like the differences were more in my head than they were in anybody else’s that would listen to the things I was doing," Carrie said.
The country star recorded her new album, Cry Pretty, while recovering from the injury.
"I had wanted to be in the studio sooner than I was, actually recording these songs, but I had stitches inside my mouth, outside my mouth. It was physically impossible," she continued.
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She continued: "Going into the studio for the first time, it was a mind game: 'Do I sound the same? Is my diction the same? Does my mouth move the same as it did before?' I would sing something and then look at David [Garcia] and be like, 'Did that all come out clearly?' My m’s and b’s and p’s were kind of the issue. And he was like, 'I thought it sounded great.'”
Despite the challenges, Carrie chose not to hire a vocal coach for the album. She says she hasn't used a vocal coach since she did The Sound of Music.
"I feel like you just kind of have to find your way through it," she explained. "I don’t like it when people try to tell me how to sing, because it should be natural."
In addition to her facial injury, Carrie says her voice is changing now simply because she's getting older.
"I kind of expect I’m not always going to sound like I’m 22 coming off of American Idol," she said. "Hopefully I get better."
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The mom of one was dealing with more than just a facial injury during the album recording. She was also going through a major pregnancy struggle — she suffered three miscarriages in just over a year.
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Carrie opened up about the miscarriages on the album as well as in the press.
"It wasn't a conscious thing," Carrie told Vulture about her decision to discuss her miscarriages.
"It wasn't like, 'I'm gonna write about this because this just happened.' It would be completely inevitable. I’d have a terrible day at the doctor’s office and then come into a writing session and be like, 'I’m sorry guys. I might suck today. I just got some bad news.'"
"I thought, 'What am I gonna do? Go home and wallow in this all day long? No, I want to keep working. I want to keep pushing forward. This is still something that has to be done,'" she said.
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And push forward she did. Cry Pretty was released in September, and Carrie and her husband, Mike Fisher, are now pregnant with their second child.
