Brandi Carlile has given her share of big-spot performances. From the Grammys to Glastonbury, the homegrown folk rock star has touched plenty of stages commanding intense spotlights. But none as bright as Sunday, when she’ll sing “America the Beautiful” during the lead-up to the 2026 Super Bowl, where her hometown Seahawks will take on the New England Patriots.
Last year, America’s most American event (outside of a free and fair Election Day) drew 127.7 million viewers. It was the second most-watched TV event in U.S. history, behind only the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Doesn’t get bigger than that.
Still, it’s not like Carlile’s getting all shaky-kneed thinking about the number of chip dippers and Monday morning quarterbacks tuning in at home.
“Isn’t that funny how that’s like our metric for what huge is?” Carlile said. “Since as long as we can remember, we say things like, ‘Oh man, this thing is going to be so huge, it might as well be the Super Bowl! It’s like Super Bowl big!’ Like, that’s the metric. So yeah, it just feels like a massive, massive deal, but I’m kind of steady about it. I’m ready for it.”
With its vast reach, a Super Bowl performance slot is the sort of opportunity an artist could spend their entire career clamoring for and never get.
Though, as Carlile’s wife and manager Catherine Carlile tells it, this peach fell right into their lap through the Americana star’s new label, Interscope Records.
“It’s one of those emails that makes your whole day,” Catherine said. “So for us, it was just an immediate, big fat ‘Yes.’”
With a mega spectacle like the Super Bowl (and its many stakeholders), there’s a fair amount of back-and-forth sorting out the carefully orchestrated logistics and aspects of the performances — from wardrobe choices to the specifics of performing on a football field — even those under two minutes.
“She has a little accompaniment, some unexpected accompaniment,” Catherine teased, careful not to divulge too much. “But I think that her take on this song is going to be uniquely special. And it’s funny, you get like one minute, 40 seconds to do something huge and make an impact, and that’s no small feat. But with a song like that, for somebody like Brandi, such a sensitive orator, I think it’s kind of perfect for her.”
Never mind whatever stream-bumping, audience-expanding benefits come with a plum gig like the Super Bowl. The impact Carlile seems most concerned with is the cultural one.
Asked about singing the patriotic number on America’s biggest stage at a hyperpolarized time when our Constitution is being tested, Carlile said, “Well, it’s a complex situation. This stage alone is a complex situation, if you’re paying attention.”
This year’s selection of Puerto Rican rapper/singer Bad Bunny to headline the iconic halftime show has drawn conservative backlash. A Spanish-speaking American citizen, Bad Bunny is one of the five biggest pop stars on the planet, making Grammys history last week when his “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” became the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year. Accepting another award that evening, Bad Bunny used part of his acceptance speech to criticize recent ICE operations.
Last fall, the right-wing organization Turning Point USA, founded by the late conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, announced it would hold a counterprogramming event to the halftime show. Performers announced this week include rapper-turned-country rocker Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert.
Starting with the 2020 Super Bowl, the NFL has contracted with Jay-Z’s entertainment company Roc Nation to produce the halftime show. Roc Nation has made concerted efforts to diversify and modernize the show and pregame entertainment, including the performances of the national anthem and “America the Beautiful.”
“‘America the Beautiful’ is one of the finest pieces of music and lyrics … that this country has ever seen,” Carlile said. “And it’s written from a perspective that I don’t know anybody that can’t get behind. I do believe in what the song is saying, and particularly if you delve into the lesser-known verses of this song, and you think about who wrote it and the situation. I’ve spent a lot of time on it and meditating on it, and I feel really proud to do it. And I feel really proud that they asked a gay woman to do it.”
A casual listen to “America the Beautiful” (and particularly the first verse) reveals a song basking in the country’s physical beauty, “from sea to shining sea.” But there’s a deeper read that blows an aspirational air beneath those eagle wings, asking — if not challenging — the country to live up to its ideals, for everyone.
While the lyrics were revised on several occasions, the words stem from an original 1895 poem written by Katharine Lee Bates, a Wellesley College professor and feminist author and poet, whom many scholars believe was gay. According to an NPR report, Bates had a “hardscrabble upbringing,” and her “family’s challenges gave Bates a deep empathy and lifelong interest in helping those struggling to make ends meet.”
She and her longtime companion Katharine Coman, a social activist and fellow Wellesley professor, were involved in the reformist settlement house movement and helped “organize a settlement home for immigrant workers in Boston,” according to NPR.
As a like-minded artist and activist herself, the roots of the song and its values clearly spoke to Carlile.
“If we can draw as many people as possible to that original poem and the woman that wrote it, it’ll be a really interesting perspective on America,” Carlile said. “I’m really excited to get to sing that song on such an important stage as a person from a marginalized community.”
Once Carlile (and, with any luck, the Seahawks) hit all the right notes on Sunday, the singer heads to the East Coast to kick off an arena run with support from fellow hometown folk rockers The Head and the Heart. After the tour wraps up in the Bay Area, Carlile will set her sights on the Gorge Amphitheatre, where her Echoes Through the Canyon concerts (May 29-30) will return from a two-year break.
The stacked all-women lineup features roots rock greats Bonnie Raitt and Indigo Girls, Sara Bareilles and all-star trio I’m With Her. Saturday tickets are virtually sold out, and Carlile is “casually tossing around the idea” of adding a third night at the landmark venue that holds a special place in her heart.
“I would say that probably the first time I ever really felt like I’d ‘made it,’ it’s because I got to be on that stage,” Carlile said. “And that never wears off. Every time I put that show up on sale, I’m terrified it won’t go (laughs) and that the (previous year) was my last time at the Gorge. So, may it last. I’m just thrilled to have one more shot at it.”
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