Something in the Water

Album: Greatest Hits: Decade #1 (2014)
Charted: 24
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Songfacts®:

  • A brand new song included on Carrie Underwood's Greatest Hits: Decade #1 album, this was released as a single on September 29, 2014. "It's really kind of a joyous, uplifting song about changing your life for the better and kind of having that 'a-ha' moment," Underwood explained, "to waking up and your life being different from that moment forward."
  • Carrie Underwood wrote the song along with Chris DeStefano ("Good Girl") and Brett James ("Cowboy Casanova"). The singer's longtime producer Mark Bright was the guy behind the console.

    DeStefano told Taste of Country the song came together easily in one writing session. "Going in to write with Carrie, it's always an adventure, because obviously she can do so many different things stylistically," he said. "I had this little musical idea I brought in. It was basically just a lot of instruments, and the vibe was kinda there. It just had an emotion to it. I started playing it in the room for Brett and Carrie, and I remember saying, 'Well, you guys are hopefully gonna like this, or hate it.'"

    The other writers did like DeStefano's idea, and it was Underwood who provided the song's title. "She said, 'I have this song title, 'Something in the Water,' and she kind of explained what she wanted to write about, and we were just immediately like, 'Oh gosh, that would really be beautiful over this,'" DeStefano recalled. "So we immediately knew. It was just one of those things where the whole vibe of the song really began at that point, really strong right from the get-go."
  • 'There must be something in the water' is a humorous way of accounting for unusual or eccentric behavior. Other songs utilizing the phrase include:

    "Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)" by Prince (A bluesy funk cut from the Purple maestro's 1999 album.)

    "Something in the Water" by Brooke Fraser (The lead single from Brooke Fraser's Flags album, it topped the New Zealand singles charts in 2010.)

    "California Gurls" by Katy Perry (Includes the lyric: "I know a place. Where the grass is really greener. Warm, wet n' wild. There must be something in the water.")
  • The song finds Underwood revisiting the turning to God of her hit single "Jesus, Take The Wheel." In this instance she is singing about water baptism.

    I followed that preacher man down to the river
    And now I'm changed
    And now I'm stronger
    There must've been something in the water
  • We hear Underwood testifying to "singing along to 'Amazing Grace" adding that "no one can wipe this smile off my face." Later on she belts out a few lines from the classic hymn. According to Chris DeStefano the song's incorporation of "Amazing Grace" was Underwood's idea.

    "It was right at the end and we were listening back (to the recording)," he recalled to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International. "And all of a sudden, I just hear Carrie singing that in the background. It was a special moment. I think we all cried that day."
  • Here are three more songs about baptism:

    "Take Me to the River" by Al Green

    "Changed" by Rascal Flatts

    "Rebirthing" by Skillet
  • The immersion in or sprinkling with water as a religious rite of initiation was practiced long before the beginning of Christianity. Here's some baptism trivia:

    St. Augustine laid the foundations for infant baptism. He taught that people are born with an affinity for sin and as descendants of Adam and Eve share in the guilt of original sin. Therefore he believed infant baptism was important.

    The Anabaptists were one of the first groups during the Reformation to reject infant baptism and practice the baptism of adults upon confession of faith. These brave Christians were often drowned by their persecutors as the authorities supposed if they wanted to be fully immersed- let them!

    A Swedish pastor was electrocuted as he stood in a pool of water for a baptism ceremony, when one of his assistants handed him a live microphone.

    The priest at young Boris Yeltsen’s christening was so drunk that he dropped baby Boris into the font then forgot he was there. (Source The Encyclopedia of Trivia).
  • This became Underwood's 14th #1 on the country chart following her performance of the song during the 2014 CMA Awards.
  • This won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance.
  • The song's music clip was directed by Raj Kapoor and won both Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year at the 2015 CMT Awards. Underwood also won Collaborative Video of the Year for "Somethin' Bad" with Miranda Lambert at the same ceremony.
  • A pair of Canadian songwriters, Georgia Lyons and Ronald McNeill, filed a lawsuit in September 2017, claiming that they wrote a song with the same title which bears a striking resemblance to this one. The Tennessean reported that Lyons and McNeill alleged that they pitched their "Something in the Water" demo to Underwood's producer Mark Bright in 2014. The two never heard back from Bright, but Underwood released her in the fall of that year. The two songwriters purported that Underwood's version of "Something in the Water" is "structurally and lyrically identical, and substantially similar melodically" to their composition of the same title."

    Underwood, Bright, DeStefano and James, their publishing company and Sony Music Nashville are all defendants in the suit.

Comments: 1

  • Bill from TnI appreciate the attention that you have brought to this song. However, it is clear that you have not been enlightened from the Bible about about the subject of baptism. Carries words are truer than most of the people you quoted. Her son, which follows the line of scripture exposes the blind religious prejudice of denominational teaching. First of all, please note that the Bible does not use the term "water baptism" EVER in ANY TRANSLATION. It is baptism. Many words of the Bible speak of baptism. Here are just a few. Acts 2:38 (NIV) "Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Romans 6:3-4 (NIV) "Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Colossians 2:12 (NIV) "having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." 1 Peter 3:21 (NIV) "and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Carrie was not ashamed of the Gospel and I thank her for her boldness.



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