Mickey Guyton and LeAnn Rimes' new song is a 'battle cry' for women

LeAnn Rimes and Mickey Guyton have released a powerful new anthem, right on time.

The song, titled “the wild,” debuted on Friday from Rimes’ upcoming album, “god’s work.”

Rimes and Guyton start the song with a mournful chant, joined by Sheila E. on drums with her distinct percussion work. In an interview with CNN earlier this week, the two singers spoke to about the message of “the wild,” which explores the forceful pushback and ridicule women often face when speaking out.

“I wrote this song in early 2020, actually before everything that we’re go going through at this moment in time, but I feel like as women the same narrative keeps getting replayed over and over again and has for centuries,” Rimes said. “I was actually reading a lot of books about Mary Magdalene at the time, and, for me, it was a real long hard look at my own rage around the way women’s sexuality has been weaponized through religion, through patriarchy.

“It’s a battle cry. It’s rage. It’s grief,” she continued.

Guyton told CNN that she has long admired Rimes as an artist.

“It’s just been an honor to join forces with someone like you, who has gone through so much that you’ve had so many, including women, shame you and were horrible to you,” Guyton said of Rimes. “And the fact that you found strength in that to still stand up for the same people that try to persecute you is just completely admirable. And again, that’s why I forever stand you.”

Rimes faced scrutiny at the beginning of her relationship with her now husband, Eddie Cibrian. Rimes and Cibrian met on the set of a film in 2008 when they were each in other relationships.

“Mickey, to have you on this song, for me to hear you sing these words and to know your journey in this business as a Black woman is just been incredible to see you overcome so much oppression,” Rimes said in response to Guyton. “I so wanted you on this song.”

With the US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Rimes said “the wild” carries new meaning.

“A woman to have their own say in sovereignty over their own bodies, that’s played out not only in Roe v. Wade, but like I said, for generations in many different ways,” Rimes said. “This speaks to it, but it was not intentionally written about it. I feel like sometimes I don’t know why I write what I write and then all of a sudden it all lines up the way the universe wants it to and it’s like, ‘Oh, there was a reason. There was a bigger reason for this than just my own need to express.’”