For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.

McEntire frames “sad songs” not as indulgence in misery but as a practical emotional tool. By voicing grief through music, pain becomes articulate and shareable—moved “into the light” where it can be recognized, processed, and ultimately integrated. The quote also reflects a long tradition in country music in which storytelling about heartbreak functions as communal catharsis: the singer’s confession gives listeners language for their own wounds. Her emphasis on healing suggests that art can convert private suffering into a form of clarity, replacing isolation and denial (“darkness”) with acknowledgment and release.