Trisha Yearwood Discovered 'Pet Peeve' After Telling Story About Engagement

Trisha Yearwood shared the story behind one of the tracks on her latest studio album, including how the songwriting process revealed a “pet peeve.”

Yearwood released The Mirror over the summer. She co-wrote each of the 15 tracks on the record for the first time in her career, and her husband, fellow country icon Garth Brooks, said she’d “outdone” herself. Yearwood told the story behind “Little Lady” in a clip shared on Instagram on Thursday (August 27):

“People ask me if I have pet peeves, and I guess I do. I didn’t know this was a pet peeve until I actually wrote a song about it. This was with Leslie Satcher and Bridgette Tatum, and we were sitting around the kitchen table talking. And I was telling the story about how when Garth and I first got engaged, people would be like, ‘oh, let me see the ring.’ And I get that. I mean, that’s the tradition. That’s what everybody wants to do, is like, see the ring. But it’s not about the ring. And when people would say — and I know they were meaning well — but they would just look at the ring and they’d go, ‘oh, you did good.’ Like, you don’t have to work anymore, like you can now rest. When somebody would say, ‘you did good,’ I always took it like, ‘does that mean that you think this was all — it was this prize that I was working toward, and now I can retire?’ But I will say that we mentioned a woman named Pam in this song, and all the names have been changed to protect the guilty. There’s no Pam.”

Yearwood and Brooks got married in December 2005. Ahead of The Mirror’s debut, Brooks wrote in an Instagram caption that he’s “never been more excited for you, [Trisha Yearwood] you’ve outdone yourself! The Mirror is my FAVORITE album you have EVER made...the world is lucky to hear your voice, your stories and your soul in this way. This album, like you, is a gift to all of us! love, me.” The Mirror also includes “Bringing the Angels,” “The Wall Or the Way Over,” “Girls Night In,” “The Record Plays On” with Charles Kelley, and more.

“This album is different from all the others in that I co-wrote every single song on this record. I’ve never done that before in my whole life,” Yearwood previously said. “’The Song Remembers When’ is me. ‘Walkaway Joe’ is me. ‘She’s In Love With The Boy’ is me. I made those songs mine when I recorded them, and I feel that I have lived those songs. But being a co-writer on these songs and coming in with, ‘hey, I wanna say this today,’ I think adds a layer that most people haven’t seen from me. So, I think that’s why I’m so excited about this record, is because it’s different in that way. I’m hoping it’s a side that people see and go, ‘oh yeah, I get that…’ That they just get to see a little different side, another layer.”