Complete List Of Brandi Carlile Songs From A to Z

Feature Photo: Andy Witchger, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Brandi Carlile grew up in Ravensdale, Washington, outside Seattle, in a working-class household that shaped much of her songwriting and worldview. Largely self-taught, she began performing locally and recording home demos while still young. Her musical partnership with twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth became a foundational part of her sound and career. Columbia Records released her self-titled debut in 2005, but it was The Story, produced by T Bone Burnett and released in 2007, that introduced her to a wider national audience.

Across her solo career, Carlile has released eight studio albums: Brandi Carlile, The Story, Give Up the Ghost, Bear Creek, The Firewatcher’s Daughter, By the Way, I Forgive You, In These Silent Days, and Returning to Myself. Her catalog moves freely among folk, rock, country, Americana, and pop while retaining the close harmonies, dramatic arrangements, and emotional candor that have remained central to her work.

By the Way, I Forgive You marked a major expansion of Carlile’s audience and earned three Grammy Awards, including Best Americana Album and two awards for “The Joke.” In These Silent Days continued that momentum, while “Broken Horses” earned Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. Her work has demonstrated an unusual ability to cross genre categories without sounding detached from its roots.

Carlile is also a founding member of the Highwomen with Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. Their self-titled album brought together songs about community, motherhood, identity, history, and women’s place within country music. Her collaborations have extended to Tanya Tucker, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Chris Stapleton, and many other artists.

Her partnership with Elton John produced Who Believes in Angels?, a collaborative album that mixed Elton-led and Brandi-led performances with lyrics by Carlile and Bernie Taupin. The project included “The Rose of Laura Nyro,” “Little Richard’s Bible,” “Swing for the Fences,” “You Without Me,” and the title song.

Later that year, Carlile released Returning to Myself, her first solo studio album in four years. Its ten songs turned inward through reflections on family, artistic identity, time, partnership, and independence. She followed the album with the standalone single “Life on the Run.”

Carlile’s memoir, Broken Horses, revealed deeper layers of her personal history, including childhood illness, her LGBTQ+ identity, faith, family relationships, and her journey toward self-acceptance. Those experiences also inform the directness of her lyrics, which repeatedly address forgiveness, resilience, belonging, parenthood, and the cost of telling the truth.

Beyond music, Carlile co-founded the Looking Out Foundation, supporting causes that include LGBTQ+ rights, women’s empowerment, education, health, and community development. Her advocacy is closely connected to her artistic life, and her work has consistently sought to amplify voices that are too often pushed outside the center of the music industry.

Through her artistry, Carlile’s voice has become a source of comfort, challenge, and inspiration. She has built her career by choosing emotional risk over distance and creative freedom over predictability, establishing a body of work that feels both deeply personal and open enough for listeners to recognize their own lives within it.