Concrete Angel

The song is a power ballad, centering on a main theme of child abuse. The narrator tells a story about a 7-year-old named Angela Carter, who endures abuse at the hands of her mother. The abuse is silently questioned by Angela's teachers and neighbors, but goes unreported. By the song's end, Angela is killed by her mother after another act of abuse, and goes on to an afterlife where "she is loved" more than she was on earth.

The following musicians perform on this track:[3]

• Matt Chamberlain – drums
• David Huff – programming
• B. James Lowry – acoustic guitar
• Martina McBride – lead vocals
• Jerry McPherson – electric guitar
• Steve Nathan – piano, synthesizer
• Biff Watson – acoustic guitar
• Glenn Worf – bass guitar

The video was directed and produced by Deaton Flanigen. Angela Carter (played by Noel Wiggins) is the 7-year-old daughter of an abusive mother. As she is walking to school, another little girl looks at her and then laughs at her, which could imply she was also a victim of bullying. While she is at school, the teacher and her classmates ignore the bruises on her body, either because they think she just had a minor accident or they want to avoid having problems with her family. One day, a young boy (played by Luke Benward) around her age befriends her. One night, Angela and the boy are talking to each other from their bedroom windows, and her mother catches her and beats her to death-(which is shown by her mother's shadow). After the beating, police officers and an ambulance are shown at her house-(assuming that some neighbors had heard the noise and her mother had been arrested). At the funeral, Angela's grave marked as 1995-2002 is shown, surrounded by a group of people, including her school teacher and her only friend. It is implied that the boy is the ghost of a young child who was killed from being abused and then comes to her, before she passes and shows her friendship. The music video ends when the boy passes through the adults, hugs the spirit of Angela and they both run to meet a group of other abused children as they run off into the horizon. When the video was originally released, it featured the phone number for the American Child Abuse Hotline and encouraged viewers to report abuse. The music video received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Music Video.

• Spanish singer Marta Sánchez covered the song as "Cómo Un Ángel" in her album Soy Yo, released in 2002.
• Canadian Idol winner Melissa O'Neil covered the song on the album High Notes.
• Jackie Evancho covered this song in her album Prelude to a Dream which was a self-produced CD available briefly as a demo album in 2009 when she was nine years old.

"Concrete Angel" debuted at number 52 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of November 30, 2002.

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics