Carrie Underwood Fans

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Round 12: Look At Me vs Someday When I Stop Loving You

Look At Me vs Someday When I Stop Loving You

  • Look At Me

    Votes: 15 38.5%
  • Someday When I Stop Loving You

    Votes: 24 61.5%

  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .

allamericangirl8

New member
See, I don't hear the same emotion in LAM as I do SWISLY. I feel like I can hear her heartbreak as she's singing it. It's so delicate and beautiful, and I can feel her emotion. I just don't have the same connection with LAM, and part of it may have to do with the fact that it's a cover song. It's beautiful, but I just don't feel the same connection to it.

And the above performance of LAM is beautiful; I wish she had performed it live more often.

My vote still goes to SWISLY, though. :p

What's the difference between covering a song and singing a song you haven't written?
 

HuiZ

Well-known member
SWISLY is gorgeous. I love it.

But....... it can't beat LAM. LAM is absolute perfection. When I heard it for the first time, I felt her joy, her love, her overwhelming emotions so much that it made me appreciate my own relationship too. Brought a happy tear to my eye, tbh. If I'm Mike, I would be a mess if Carrie sang that to me, lol.
 

gocountrymusic

Active member
Both are very strong songs. These two and What Can I Say for a trifecta of Play On that I will love from the era more than the singles themselves. With that being said SWISLY requires a more complex emotional interpretation than Look At Me. While for Carrie Look At Me might be difficult because of its "mushy" content, SWISLY needs the right mix of bittersweet, irony, and a bit of back and forth in the narrators head (it talks about the end of a relationship and accepting it but still wanting to stop it). So for me Someday When I Stop Loving You. Some might find it dull, I find it compelling, descriptive and a true highlight in Carrie's song catalog.
 

allamericangirl8

New member
Both are very strong songs. These two and What Can I Say for a trifecta of Play On that I will love from the era more than the singles themselves. With that being said SWISLY requires a more complex emotional interpretation than Look At Me. While for Carrie Look At Me might be difficult because of its "mushy" content, SWISLY needs the right mix of bittersweet, irony, and a bit of back and forth in the narrators head (it talks about the end of a relationship and accepting it but still wanting to stop it). So for me Someday When I Stop Loving You. Some might find it dull, I find it compelling, descriptive and a true highlight in Carrie's song catalog.

I said this once, and everybody on this site disagreed with me immensely. I still believe this, though. But I also think even that's easier to convey for Carrie than that joy and vulnerability in LAM. LAM is just such a confessional song, like you're laying down your armor and pouring your heart out, a heart that had been kept under lock-and-key for so long.
 

countrymusicfan15

Well-known member
SWISLY is absolutely brilliant! The music, the vocal, EVERYTHING about it. In the intro, I can hear the horn of the bus as it's departing and can picture Carrie standing there not knowing what to do. and the song is just sooooo relaxing with its understated production. Flawless as far I am concerned!
 

Farawayhills

Well-known member
I've said earlier that most of the songs on "Play On" proved a relative disappointment to me. I supported the album at the time, but find little encouragement to go back to it now, finding each of the other three more satisfying in their own way. However, the paradox is that the album I find the least satisfying also contains the song that I would rate as one of my overall favourires of Carrie's career so far - "Someday When I Stop Loving You."

To take "Look At Me" first - although this does, strictly, qualify as a "cover", it differs from many of the usual run of cover songs by not having been previously part of an artist's own album release. It comes from the soundtrack of the film "Billy", based on the early life of Billy Graham, and, although sung there by Alan Jackson, that version got far less exposure than Carrie's main release version (with support vocals from Vince Gill). The song is by Jim Collins and Paul Overstreet (mercifully, freed here from the "tractor" songs they wrote for Chesney and Aldean). Paul Overstreet was responsible for a couple of Randy Travos' classics, and for Keith Whitley's beautiful "When You Say Nothing At All" (which Alison Krauss memorably covered). This though does not strike me as one of their most memorable. Carrie does sing it with a heart melting yearning and confessional vulnerability - but I can't fully shake off the impression of the song itself being a fairly predictable example of the Nashville Mainstream, with some neo-traditional echoes. Carrie has visited other examples of this sub-genre - I think, with more memorable songs.

By contrast, SWISLY comes across to me as what I want to hear in a contemporary Country song - real, relatable emotion, with traditional Country references, a twangy steel driven backing, the retention of a raw edge in the lyric, and no sense of an artificial debt to the more cloying "Nashville Sound". Two themes that I find particularly memorable are the desperation in the narrator's thought of lying down in front of the bus, and the imagery in the naturally inspired but impossible things that would have to happen before she forgot her love - culminating in the clever Roots Music reference to the grass turning blue. Casrrie called this her favourite song from the album, and although, she weakened one line, possibly for potential Mainstream radio susceptibilities, she kept the songwriters' arrangement virtually intact. Some of the concert clips of this song that I've seen show Carrie at her best, fully engaged with the lyric, emotionally powerful, and projecting a close rapport with the audience.
 

sosmallgirl

New member
Casrrie called this her favourite song from the album, and although, she weakened one line, possibly for potential Mainstream radio susceptibilities, she kept the songwriters' arrangement virtually intact. Some of the concert clips of this song that I've seen show Carrie at her best, fully engaged with the lyric, emotionally powerful, and projecting a close rapport with the audience.

I absolutely love SWISLY, and Carrie sings it so well. I'm curious, do we know which line she changed from the original?
 

jjeff1979

New member
LAM by a mile.
Never been a fan of SDWISLY.I find it rather dull and boring.
QIA.not a fan of it all.the only songs worse on the album imo are Change and Undo It.I would find it hard to pick a favourite song off of this album though as there is so many amazing songs.Play On is by far my favourite album
 
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