Carrie Underwood Holed Up In Basement Writing New Sunday Night Football theme

NASHVILLE--Singer Carrie Underwood has been holed up in the basement of her Tennessee home for months laboring over the new Sunday Night Football theme song, family and friends reported today. The isolated, obsessed artist has reportedly been toiling over the composition day and night to the point where many of those close to her fear she is losing touch with reality. The singer, reportedly consumed with penning the perfect opus to commemorate the NFL's Sunday night showcase, hasn’t seen the light of day in months.

“I’ve never seen her like this,” said a family member who asked not to be identified. “She’s been in that basement since April, working by candlelight, surrounded by crumpled up pieces of paper, unwashed and underfed. Every once in a while I hear her scream, ‘No! Not good enough!’ and overturn a table or something. It all started with last year's version. Last year's version was a masterpiece! But that very masterpiece is now threatening to devour her.”

Experts say many artists throughout history have gone mad while creating their masterpieces.

“Edgar Allen Poe was said to have horrifying visions while completing The Raven,” said Alice Gregory, researcher from Stanford University. “Michaelangelo suffered crippling insomnia while working on the Sistine Chapel. Beethoven was haunted by voices during his composition of his Ninth Symphony. So you can only imagine what Miss Underwood is going through right now. All we can do is pray for her.”

Last year’s SNF theme song was a cultural touchstone, a poetic evocation so transcendent and lasting many felt it could never be surpassed. The crushing pressure to come up with something better is what drives Underwood, according to her husband Mike Fisher.

“Last year’s song has been a curse,” a despondent Fisher told The Tennessean yesterday. “It was just…too perfect. Listen to these lyrics: ‘America’s game been waitin all day / the best of the best have come to play. The gang’s all here, let’s turn it up / It’s the NFL, can’t get enough.’ Devastating. If those lyrics don’t move you, you have no soul. And don’t even get me started on the visuals. A heavily airbrushed and implausibly thin Carrie Underwood co-mingling with hologram versions of NFL players? How do they even do that? The players change every week!!”

“The other night,” he continued, “for the first time in weeks, she peeked her head out the door. She said to me ‘I need something that rhymes with 'night'. I don’t know, I was on the spot. I said ‘box kite.’ She slammed the door so hard a picture fell off the wall.”

When asked how the song has affected his marriage, Fisher had this to say: “What marriage? She’s married to that damn song. I barely even have a wife anymore. I’m telling you, next year she’s going to have to hand this shit off to someone else. Someone who won't be affected by the pressure because they don't give a rat’s ass about what kind of garbage their shitting out to the listening public. I’m looking at you, Katy Perry.”