Carrie Underwood is red-hot with her new smash single, “Smoke Break” — it’s the first taste of her upcoming Storyteller album, and it’s not only a song that Carrie co-wrote, it’s also a lyric that Carrie thought would ring true for a lot of people. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• The digital single for “Smoke Break” is available now on Apple Music!
• “Smoke Break” is the first single from Carrie’s upcoming fifth studio album, Storyteller, set for release on October 23rd!
• You can pre-order a physical copy of Carrie’s Storyteller album online now at Amazon.com.
• Produced by Jay Joyce, “Smoke Break” was written by Carrie, Hillary Lindsey, and Chris DeStefano, who together wrote Carrie’s most recent number-one smash, “Little Toy Guns.”
• In other Carrie news, she’s just been announced to perform as part of the Grand Ole Opry’s 90th birthday weekend celebration on October 3rd! Find out more about all the weekend fun by going to Opry.com/birthday.
• Congratulations to Carrie on her recent CMA Awards nominations for Female Vocalist of the Year and Music Video of the Year for “Something in the Water”! Carrie and Brad Paisley will return as show co-hosts for an eighth consecutive year when The 49th Annual CMA Awards airs live, November 4th, on ABC.

Carrie Underwood talks about her new smash single, “Smoke Break.”

  Carrie Underwood (:19)
“When we were writing ‘Smoke Break’ — myself, Hillary Lindsey, and Chris DeStefano — we wanted to make the song just super-relatable, so we picked characters and storylines that we thought people were experiencing in their own lives.”

  Carrie Underwood (1:12)
“We kind of deal with the mom who is kind of runnin’ herself ragged takin’ care of her kids, and tryin’ to take care of her house and her, you know, husband and her, you know…still have her jobs, tryin’ to put food on the table, and you know, just kind of treadin’ water. It was just kind of all about everybody in their life has experienced some of that at some point. Just struggles with work and family and juggling it all, and then we picked this other guy who was tryin’ to live up to expectations and kind of, you know, strive for the highest thing, climb the ladder, you know, just kind of setting himself up. Hopefully, he’ll succeed, but it’s just about the pressure and about needing to take a step away from both of those scenarios, and the characters deserve to have a moment to themselves, in whatever that moment might be for them and whatever…however they may find peace, just for a second, you know? Your life’s still gonna be crazy when you come back, but you’ll be better able to handle it after you’ve had a second to kind of gather your thoughts. We thought those two things, those two storylines, people could really relate to because everybody’s experienced both of those things at some point in their lives.”

Check out Carrie’s TV performance debut of “Smoke Break” on NBC’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.