Faith Hill’s ‘Cry’ Represents 14 ‘Needles In A Haystack’
Faith Hill’s new chart-topping album, Cry, took more than a year to make from beginning to end. The singer was focused on two things: motherhood and the studio. When not tending to daughters Gracie, Maggie, and Audrey, Hill was combing through material to find the perfect 14 songs to complete the new project.
The singer says she devoted countless hours to listening to any and every song that was sent her way, as she invited all songwriters to pitch her their best this time around. Hill tells LAUNCH, “Well, I do, along with my producers, hear thousands and thousands of songs over the course of a very long time. Really I never stop looking, and I don’t look in one specific place. Yes, I call on the songwriters who I have had success with and who I’ve known and who’ve been on the records previously, but I call all songwriters, so I really don’t care where the music comes from.”
Hill says that finding that initial song for Cry was overwhelming, but things got easier after that, she explains. “The process of listening to songs is a tedious process and it’s a daunting task, but there has to be something about the music that interests me. It could be a lyrical content that makes me go back and listen to it again. Could be the music that never leaves my mind, but there has to be some kind of emotion that I feel. Getting to the first one that I get really, really excited about is the most difficult part about making a record for me, because it’s just like, ‘Oh! When am I ever gonna hear that song that I really need to hear to get this project going?’ It’s like finding a needle in a haystack really.”
Hill’s first “needle” was the album cut, “If This Is The End.”
The new single from Cry, called “When The Lights Go Down,” is already climbing the charts. That song is also the title of the superstar’s forthcoming NBC Thanksgiving special, Faith Hill (news): When The Lights Go Down. The show will feature special guest Carlos Santana playing guitar during Hill’s performance of “Breathe.” The show airs November 28 at 9 p.m. ET.
— Margy Holland, Nashville