Carrie Underwood was so blown away by an “American Idol” contestant’s soulful rendition of “Before He Cheats,” she temporarily “forgot” her own chart-topping version of the song.
New York City singer JMarie kicked off the auditions on the March 30 episode of “Idol” by telling Underwood and fellow judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan that she chose Underwood’s 2006 country music hit โ which tells the story of a woman taking revenge on a potentially unfaithful partner โย because it was a “hood anthem.”
โAll my girls in the hood love this song,” JMarie told Underwood, who made her debut as an “Idol” judge this season, two decades after being crowned the showโs champ.
โHave you ever had it called a hood song?โ Bryan asked his fellow country music superstar.
โI donโt think so. Hey, I love it!โ Underwood responded.
โAll my girls on the block. We know that song word for word. It speaks to us, Carrie. It speaks to us,โ explained JMarie.
JMarie belted a bluesy arrangement of “Before He Cheats” while accompanied by piano. She infused the song, which was written by Chris Tompkinsย andย Josh Kear, with impressive vocal runs and an improvisational spirit.
All three judges nodded along as JMarie sang about taking a baseball bat to her lover’s truck just in case he considers stepping out on her. They laughed when she tagged her own cheeky lyric โ “Because he ain’t that dumb” โ onto the song’s final chorus.
When JMarie finished, Underwood was the first to speak.
“Iโm going to be real honest, I was a little worried coming into sitting here that people would sing my songs to me. But you made it your own,” Underwood told her. “I forgot about myself ever having sung that song and it was like Iโd heard it for the first time and that was โฆ It was effortless. Amazing.”
“But Iโm mad at you for not trying out sooner,” she added.
JMarie burst into tears after hearing Underwoodโs feedback.
โI had so many people tell me I wasnโt pretty enough, I wasnโt slim enough,โ JMarie told the judges. โI just psyched myself out and I was scared.
“Weโre glad youโre here,” Bryan told the singer.
Richie chimed in, “You made it yours and you came with attitude. Forget about times you missed. This is the right time, OK? And you slayed it.”
All three judges chuckled over the lyric JMarie added to the song’s end.
“What’d you say at the end? ‘I know he ain’t that dumb,'” Bryan said. “Carrie was probably like, ‘I should have put that in there!'”
“We’ll steal it,” Underwood joked.
โFrom here on out, I think you take all your worries of stuff that people have done to hold you back, just shed all that because that was a very great job,” Bryan told JMarie.
“I mean, I can’t believe this is like right off the bat,” he added.
“Right off the bat?” Underwood joked, in reference to lyrics of “Before He Cheats.”
The trio of judges voted to send JMarie to Hollywood to compete on “American Idol.”
After learning she scored one of the show’s golden tickets, JMarie bowed to Underwood, gushing, “Thank you, my queen.โย
