CMA Awards triple-nominee Carrie Underwood has the hottest new song on the airwaves with her gorgeous single, “Something in the Water,” which just released on Monday as the first single from Carrie’s December 9th album, titled Greatest Hits: Decade #1. It’s a song that Carrie co-wrote, and she tells us the story of how “Something in the Water” came together. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Pick up Carrie’s “Something in the Water,” available now on iTunes!
• Carrie Underwood is among the star-studded guest artists singing with Michael W. Smith on his new holiday album, Michael W. Smith & Friends: The Spirit of Christmas, which released this Tuesday. Carrie sings with Michael on his original song, “All Is Well,” and Carrie tells us that she loved being a part of the project. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
  – Other guest on the new album include Vince Gill, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Amy Grant, Jennifer Nettles, Bono, and Michael McDonald.
• And Speaking of Christmas… Carrie Underwood will perform on this year’s CMA Country Christmas concert and television special, taping in front of a live audience on Friday, November 7th, at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. With Jennifer Nettles hosting and performing, the show will also feature Sara Evans, Dan + Shay, Brett Eldredge, Lucy Hale, Hunter Hayes, Little Big Town, Idina Menzel, LeAnn Rimes, and Michael W. Smith. Tickets are on sale now at CMAChristmas.com, or by calling 800-745-3000, or in person at the Bridgestone Arena box office. The TV special will air later this year on ABC.
  – Audience members attending this year’s show are encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy for donation to Generosity, a Nashville-based non-profit that will have bins and volunteers on-site to collect the toys for children in need this holiday season.
• A three-time CMA Awards nominee this year, Carrie and show co-host Brad Paisley have both been officially announced as performers for Country Music’s Biggest Night™ when The 48th Annual CMA Awards airs live from Nashville, November 5th, on ABC.

  Carrie Underwood recalls the beginnings of her new single, “Something in the Water.” (:55)
“The day ‘Something in the Water’ came about, I had a writing day all scheduled with Chris DeStefano and Brett James, both of whom I had written with before, but I’d never written with the three of us together. And Chris is kind of a musical master; he’s a little wizard. I call him a mad scientist because he can just sit down and — out of nothing but his computer and instruments that he plays himself — he can put together a track just of some melodies he’s hearin’ in his head, and he’s so good at that. And he came in, and he was like, ‘Okay, I have some music. It’s either awesome, or it’s horrible.’ He plays this song that kind of just takes off from the beginning. Nobody knows what it’s about. It just kind of goes and doesn’t stop and picks up energy, and occasionally the music will drop out, and you could tell it was just something really powerful.”

  Carrie Underwood says that once she and her co-writers had a musical direction, she had an idea for a title and a story. (:35)
“From that, it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we love this. What is this? What’s it about? What’s it called? Is it a story? Is it…’ you know, we have no idea. So I look through…I keep a little journal thing in my purse, and I keep song titles or ideas or whatever, anything. Most of it doesn’t even make sense, and like a month later, when I read it, I’m like, ‘What was I talking about?’ But I had a title called ‘Something in the Water.’ And I kind of had what it was about, in my head, because when you hear that title, it doesn’t really tell you that much about it, but it’s a saying that everybody knows, you know: ‘there’s somethin’ in the water.'”

  Carrie Underwood envisioned the story for “Something in the Water” being kind of like a baptism. (:41)
“My idea for it was kind of like a baptism, like there must be something in the water. What was it about that that changed my life? And everybody kind of jumped on board, and we went from there and created this story that starts out in somebody giving you advice and then kind of changing your life, and then how your life is changed from there. And the end of it, it just got bigger and bigger, and we started putting vocals on it like a choir was singing with us, and by the end, it was like, ‘What just happened?!’ We were literally jumping around the room, like, running around bein’ crazy because it was just kind of one of those songs that there’s just so much energy.”

  Carrie Underwood talks about being a part of Michael W. Smith’s new Christmas album. (1:08)
“I’ve been a fan of Michael W. Smith for a long time, and my husband absolutely loves him. So I got to know him a little bit kind of through my husband. He asked if I would participate in his Christmas album, and he’s got a really great list of other artists that he’s collaborating with, so I think it’s such a cool thing, you know, and the song he asked me to sing, ‘All Is Well,’ is one that he wrote. It’s really special. I mean, it feels like such a classic; it feels like I’ve been listening to that song my whole life. You know, it feels like an ‘O Holy Night’ kind of song to me. So I was really happy and really excited when he asked me to sing that song with him. And getting to be in the studio, it was just so easy getting to go in there and sing this gorgeous song. I absolutely love the way it turned out, and I really look forward to at some point getting to perform that with him, in front of people instead of just being in a studio. But hopefully it’ll touch a lot of people’s hearts around the holiday season, around Christmastime, and mean something to somebody, ’cause it’s a gorgeous song.”