Mother

Album: Remnants (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • LeAnn Rimes could never see eye-to-eye with her mother, but after becoming a stepmother to two boys when she married actor Eddie Cibrian in 2011, she eventually came to understand her mom's perspective. On the emotional track "Mother," the singer assures her mom that she now understands she did the best she could and asks for forgiveness for her part in their complicated dynamic. She told Parade: "Well, my mom and I have had an interesting relationship. You know, she kind of lost me to the world when I was 13. And, you know, that posed some really deep trauma for her - and things I could've never understood as a teenager, even in my 20s. But she would constantly tell me how much she wanted to protect me and couldn't. And I kind of just blew her off - I didn't really take that. I didn't have any empathy for it."

    It was only after writing the song and tapping into her own maternal instincts with an incident with one of her stepsons that she truly understood her mother's point-of-view. She explained, "I feel like that song, I almost wrote it and then stepped into it later with true understanding. I think I finally saw my mom as the woman that she was. Not my mother, but the woman that struggled. And she had her faults. And she has such a beauty about her heart. I kind of saw all angles of my mom as a woman."
  • Remnants is Rimes' first album with RCA UK. After leaving her longtime label, Curb Records, the country singer shopped around to different labels but felt they all wanted a ready-made album. She opted to go with RCA because they were willing to let her take her time and create something authentic.
  • Rimes told People the song "was a very healing thing to write." She explained, "It's all about acceptance and healing this generational pain that's passed down from mothers and grandmothers."
  • Rimes gave this to her mom for Mother's Day, but the women didn't listen to it together. The singer was moved when her mom texted her response after listening to the song for the first time: "I've been wanting to hear this for so long."

    "It's an amazing gift to be able to give her through music," Rimes said. "I feel like the pain kind of stops with me. I hope I don't pass on that generational pain. We talk more and we're both accepting of each other a lot more and it’s really beautiful. It was divine order in that way."

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