Carly Pearce has a new single at radio now. The Kentucky native just released “Truck on Fire” as the second single from hummingbird, following “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” her Top 5 collaboration with Chris Stapleton.
While Pearce has written plenty of songs about love and a broken heart, “Truck on Fire” is in many ways a new musical chapter for her, thanks to the feisty message in the song.
“I wrote this with Charles Kelley of Lady A and Justin Ebach, and it was so fun,” Pearce says on Apple Music Country’s Today’s Country Radio. “I feel like sad songs and sass have always been two things that I’ve really gravitated towards and I got to really let loose on this album with that. I really wanted to write something that just gave girls an anthem to just feel powerful. And don’t we all have all these crazy dreams in our head of burning down the thing that said human that hurt us loves the most?”
Pearce, fortunately, never burned anyone’s truck in real life, but she stands behind the premise of “Truck on Fire” just the same.
“Honestly, it’s like ‘This guy did this to me, and I took his truck and burned it down,’” Pearce explains to USA Today. “But, there is that sentiment that I think is in especially us ladies where, if you do us wrong, we want to seek revenge. And what is like the dream scenario to get rid of something? Carrie Underwood keyed the car. I’m burning the truck down. And I think maybe that’s just the Kentucky side of me coming out, for everybody.
“But it’s been fun to see the way that girls — it’s another form to me of giving girls an anthem of feeling strong,” she adds. “I think that’s become so much a part of who I am and my duty as an artist.”
hummingbird follows Pearce’s 2021 29: Written in Stone album, an open and vulnerable look at her healing from a broken heart, after the end to her brief marriage to Michael Ray. While that record had songs like “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” “What He Didn’t Do” and more, the Grand Ole Opry member insists hummingbird is much different than her previous project.
“These songs are not all reflective of that relationship,” Pearce maintains. “I didn’t want to be defined by that because I have moved on. And you carry pieces of people and experiences with you, but I’m not defined by that. And I was scared because there’s so much weight that went with that, good and bad. And so it was like when I started writing, I felt like I had something to prove, that I was more than that.”
Find “Truck on Fire,” hummingbird, and all of Pearce’s music and upcoming shows at CarlyPearce.com.