Like so many of us who sang Christmas carols in our childhood, Carrie Underwood recalls knowing the words to certain songs, but didn’t really understand the significance of the lyrics. One of those songs — included on the double-disc, holiday edition of her Carnival Ride album — is “The First Noel.” Looking back, it didn’t take much for a child to learn the song “’cause there’s not a lot of words goin’ on,” she laughs, but singing it today, she says, “it’s just one of those that has a different meaning to me as an adult.” (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Along with “The First Noel,” Carrie’s Walmart/Sam’s Club-exclusive double-disc Carnival Ride includes four other Christmas favorites: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “O Holy Night,” “What Child Is This,” and her holiday radio single, “Do You Hear What I Hear.”
• Carrie loves the different kind of musical feel of “What Child Is This,” and she was really happy with how the song came together in the recording studio. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

  Carrie Underwood remembers “The First Noel” as an easy song to learn when she was little. (:43)
“I remember singing ‘The First Noel,’ like, in our church, our little children’s church choir (laughs), and that’s one of those songs that you know ’cause there’s not a lot of words goin’ on (laughs), you know, anybody can sing along…’Noel’…you know, it’s just one of those that everybody can — whether you know what it means or not — and I just remember as a kid singing it and having no clue what it meant. I just knew I didn’t have to remember a whole lot to be able to sing it. And now that I’m older and can put a prettier touch on it, and actually sit back and think about it, and it’s just one of those that has a different meaning to me as an adult. And so hopefully everybody can…you know, kids can listen to it, sing along with it in the car. (laughs)”

  Carrie Underwood loved the way things came together on her recording of “What Child Is This.” (:29)
“Usually a lot of the traditional Christmas songs kind of only consist of, like, very simple chords, but I thought, you know, ‘What Child Is This,’ it kind of has a bit of minor sound to it. It ended up being really pretty. And you know, we had some absolutely wonderful studio musicians in there, and it’s just cool to get everybody together and kind of have everything be a real collaborative process, and you end up with something that was beyond whatever expectations you had of it before.”