By the time the world knew that Carly Pearce and Michael Ray were divorcing, after less than a year of marriage, Carly had already been dealing privately with the heartbreak for months. Her wide range of emotions comes out in all of the songs on her upcoming album 29: Written in Stone, including “Diamondback,” the first track on the record.
“I think it was the last song I wrote for this project,” Carly tells People. “You try to do the right thing and you try to stay quiet, and I just stopped caring in that moment. I went, ‘Hmm … I gotta go there’ — and I did.”
Carly grew up listening to strong female artists telling their own truth, which is what gave her the courage to not sugarcoat her story, either.
“All of the great women that I love as writers and as singers and as performers — [like] Natalie Maines of The Chicks, had those go-off moments,” Carly says. “I grew up loving those. Miranda [Lambert] writes from such an unapologetic place. Loretta Lynn writes from such an unapologetic place.”
29: Written in Stone is out on Friday.
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