The last song on Reba McEntire's new Stronger Than the Truth album plays like the ultimate Mother's Day song, but it was written for someone very different.

"You Never Gave Up on Me" was supposed to be a song about God's love, but it didn't make the cut on McEntire's Grammy winning Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope album. McEntire tells Taste of Country she re-discovered it in a pile of old songs and recorded it with every intention of making it a bonus track on her new album, out April 5.

At the very end she thanks her mother, closing the album with touching personal stroke.

"I played it for (a record label executive) and he said 'Oh no, that's not a bonus track. That's going on the album,'" she says, calling it the most personal song on an album that's easy to imagine her living through at many points. Stronger Than the Truth is — as promised — a stone-cold country album filled with heartbreakers. Songs like "Swing All Night With You" and her new inspiring love song single "Freedom" are exceptions to a project that elicits more tears than cheers.

When McEntire's mom Jacqueline Smith heard it, she reacted like you'd expect. "Oh she cried," the redheaded country star recalls. "she loved it."

McEntire's last studio album of country music was Love Somebody, released in 2015. It also included a tribute to a parent. "Just Like Them Horses" was the song she played at her father's funeral, and much like "You Never Gave Up on Me," she had to be convinced to include it on the album. Her father Clark was not able to hear the song before he died in October 2014.

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