Jennifer Nettles’ ‘I Can Do Hard Things’ Is About Being a Badass Woman
Jennifer Nettles professes "I Can Do Hard Things" in her new single. But it's about all strong women.
"My song 'I Can Do Hard Things' — it is about being a grown ass woman and what it is to hold everything," Nettles says in an interview with her record label, Big Machine. "Sometimes it isn't just bad or good or wrong or right, that there is a lot of gray that we hold, that we are made for the hard things just as much as we are made for the joyous and easy things. And we can do it. I can do hard things."
"I Can Do Hard Things" only has Nettles' name on it, but that doesn't mean bad things about the future of her country duo Sugarland — she's balancing both her work with Kristian Bush and her solo career. Nettles had an awakening of sorts going into this song, where she realized life doesn't have to be black and white, either/or. For instance, you have unconditional love for your spouse, but that doesn't mean you don't have bad days — the feelings co-exist and that's what she wants to shine a light on with "I Can Do Hard Things."
"For a while this discovery was quite conflicting in its unfamiliarity. As women we are taught that we must do it all and act like we like doing it all," she furthers in a feature for Medium. "That, for example, our love for our children is somehow contingent upon our love of every moment of being a mother. As if Life were an “either/or” instead of what it really is: 'both/and.' And as I began to acknowledge that Truth within me, that coexistence holding of everything all at once, I began to learn about pain and resilience and strength and tenderness."
The song is at country radio now.
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