Premiere: Trisha Yearwood's 'Met Him in a Motel Room'

Trisha Yearwood loves story songs, and she loves songs that move her.

Met Him in a Motel Room, premiering at USA TODAY, succeeds for her on both counts. The ballad, written by Rory Lee Feek and Jamie Teachenor, is the kind of poignant, exquisitely rendered performance that Yearwood's fans have come to expect of her, but it quickly takes an unexpected twist.

"You're sucked into the imagery," she says of the song, one of six new tunes included on PrizeFighter: Hit After Hit, out Nov. 17. "You think the story's going one way, then it takes a sharp turn another way. You don't often get surprised in a lyric in a song, and I like that."

PrizeFighter: Hit After Hit also includes new recordings of several of Yearwood's biggest hits, including How Do I Live and She's in Love With the Boy, as well as In Another's Eyes, her 1997 duet with Garth Brooks, whom she married in 2005.

Yearwood's latest single is the album's title track, a song that features another powerhouse singer, Kelly Clarkson. Yearwood says Clarkson came in and added her main vocal after Yearwood had recorded hers, but the two couldn't leave it there.

"We went in together and did all the harmony stuff at the end," Yearwood says. "It was really fun, because, after we had done all the answer stuff, I said, 'Go in and do some ad lib stuff at the end, then I'll do some.' She went in and did some in a bunch of places, then I went in and did some in a bunch of places. Then she goes, 'Now that you've done yours, let me go back in and do mine again.' Then I'm like, 'Let me do mine again!' We were very competitive. But in a good way."