Photo: Norman Seeff
Inspired by her own “awakening,” LeAnn Rimes channeled an “overwhelming volume of emotions” into the latest song to release from her highly-anticipated album, god’s work. The powerhouse country artist debuted “awakening” on Friday (August 19), giving fans one of her favorite songs on the record weeks away from the full project’s release.
It’s a deeply personal track for the GRAMMY Award winner, who wrote and produced it with longtime collaborator Darrell Brown. Listeners will hear soft piano notes before launching into “a journey of being able to drop your walls and feel mentally, physically, and spiritually awakened,” reads a press release announcing the new single on Friday. The personal song stems from Rimes’ experience in learning to navigate her mental health, particularly with depression and anxiety, and opening up to the world. Rimes has often been open about her mental health journey, including on the first episode of Ty Herndon’s podcast, which premiered this week.
“When I was writing this track, I was smack dab in the middle of my own awakening,” Rimes said. “I was going through this overwhelming volume of emotions, and I was really able to channel those feelings of the pain and ecstasy of the awakening and let them shine through this song. I hope when others hear this track it helps shed some light on the experience of life and the expansion and contraction of the human experience, the way it does for me.”
god’s work is set to release on September 16. The 12-track project is one that Rimes said “is beyond special to me and we have carefully curated every step of this process, like never before,” Rimes previously said. She opted to keep each letter lowercased because “If we’re arguing about why the ‘g’ is or isn’t capitalized, we’re missing the whole point. It’s so important for us to focus on the messages, rather than the nuances.”
Rimes has already shared a few of the tracks on her album, including the romantic “how much a heart can hold” and the empowering anthem “the wild.” See the full track list below. Listen to “awakening” here:
- spaceship
- the only (Ft. Ziggy Marley, Ledisi, and Ben Harper)
- awakening
- how much a heart can hold
- throw my arms around the world
- the wild (Ft. Sheila E. and Mickey Guyton)
- innocent
- god’s work (Ft. Robert Randolph, Mickey Guyton, and Tata Vega)
- something better’s coming
- imagined with love
- there will be a better day
- i do (Duet by Aloe Blacc and LeAnn Rimes)