“I was, like, out of body,” Carlile says. “I was just totally in it, immersed in the song, unaware of the fact that I was onstage at Newport, unaware of any camera, and it was just a really honest release of something that I was feeling. And so, when it got posted, I kind of knew why it resonated. And then everybody started saying, ‘Release this, release this, release this,’ and I was like, Yeah, why not? I enjoy singing this song so much. It’s such an important song for me to sing every night. I want to keep doing it, and people enjoy it. So, like, yeah—give people what they want.”
About two weeks after the festival, when Carlile shared the nearly five-minute video of the Newport performance, calling it “my full totally unhinged version of ‘Uninvited,’” the world lost its collective mind, leading normies and celebrities alike to flood the comments with their jaw-dropped praise. Ted Lasso actor Hannah Waddingham declared it “Just beYONNNNNNND.” Reese Witherspoon wrote, “UNREAL.. I’m levitating.” Laverne Cox? “Bonkers amazing.” Melanie Lynskey said she felt “this performance in my heart my soul my entire body.”
Again and again, commenters begged for the track to be released officially.
Wish granted.
“It was actually really fun to mix and get into that, to the performance, and understand retroactively what was happening, because in real time, I didn’t,” Carlile tells VF. “I think that what that song is, and why it probably resonates with women—kind of retroactively, right now, in the times that we’re living in—is because it’s just a five-minute boundary. It’s like, No, the fuck you won’t. No, you will not push past what I want in my life.”
“I’m in a situation right now—I’m going through something where I need to say that every day,” she continues. (There’s no further elaboration on the situation.) “It’s become like a mantra, and I think that if women are drawn to that song right now, or if women are drawn to my cover of that song, it has everything to do with a collective consciousness where we are needing to set a boundary around our bodies and our beliefs and our freedom to stand up and speak out and earn a living and our freedom to lead, and so ‘Uninvited’ is a strong song. It’s a strong statement.”
Earlier this year, Carlile played the song for Morissette herself, at the induction ceremony for the Songwriters Hall of Fame, screaming the deceptively tricky track with furious abandon. Carlile admits that the occasion felt “really high-pressure because [Morissette] was there, and also like right in front of me was Taylor Swift and shit.”
Alanis Morissette and Brandi Carlile at the 2026 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony on June 11, 2026 in New York City.Theo Wargo/Getty Images
