Story Behind the Song: Carrie Underwood's 'Wasted'

"I don’t wanna spend my life jaded," Carrie Underwood belts out on "Wasted," a standout from her 2005 debut album, "Some Hearts."

"Waiting to wake up one day and find that I let all these years go by, wasted."

It's hard to imagine in today's country landscape that a song called "Wasted" would be anything other than a "party song." But songwriters Marv Green, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey were inspired to do something different. "Wasted" paints vignettes of a man and a woman ready to move on and make the most of their lives.

Green and Verges told the Story Behind the Song to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Bart Herbison: Take us back to that day, Marv. Do you remember it, how this write started? 

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Marv Green: I believe it was at Troy's house. Is that right?  

Troy Verges: Yeah, it was.  

M.G.: I did have a title I wanted to write (a song to) called "Wasted." I don't know if you remember. For me, the idea was just dealing with how to use the word "wasted" in different ways, and then also just reflecting on not wanting to waste time. You know? 

B.H.: Well, if I had been you or Hillary and you'd said "wasted," the obvious connotation ...

T.V.: Yeah, another party song is what it kind of sounds like.  

B.H.: But isn't that the genius of how this turned out? 

T.V.: I think that's what made the song resonate with people, that it's not (a party song). It was a fun exercise to write it as far away from that as we could. ... I don't know if you remember this, (Marv), but you wrote a lot more of the song than ended up in the song. We wrote a bunch of vignettes.  

B.H.: So you wrote (a song like) "The House That Built Me." I say that because, apparently, that was nine pages.  

T.V.: Yeah, we didn't go that far, but we had a few extra verses that didn't end up in the song, and we cut some of them as we were doing the demo of the song. The song was too long. I think it was Marv's idea that we cut the first chorus in half and then we cut the second verse in half.

B.H.: So, musically, what happened that day?  

M.G.: Musically, Troy was just in this little groove (on guitar) ... and Hillary out of nowhere, I remember her going, "Standing at the front door, she tried to make it fast." I was like, "What is that?"

She started going off on this lyric and then we all chimed in. 

B.H.: And I think you followed it up with, with the next couple lines.  

M.G.: I did ... I said, "Pouring raindrops back into the cloud."  

T.V.: Yeah, that's my favorite line in the song!

B.H.: God, it's so good. I've never heard that before.  

B.H.: Wasn't there a conscious decision to keep it as one character or make it sort of vignettes? 

T.V.: I think it was in my mind it was conscious from the beginning to make it vignettes.

B.H.: I often ask this, especially (with songs) that make me feel the way this song makes me feel. People must come up and be so emotional (and tell you) how this impacted their lives.  

M.G.: They come up, (people) who did decide not to stay in their town, realizing that if we don't do something then there's gonna be an opportunity wasted. ... You can see when you're singing to people, you know the ones, it's really moving them. And I've certainly had those people come up and talk.  

B.H.: And then there's Carrie. ... Do both you remember the first time you heard it? 

M.G.: I do. ... I was just floored. I mean I knew Carrie had a great voice, but I was just blown away.  

T.V.: I mean, she's one of the best ever.