Faith Hill performs the theme song of NBC's 'Sunday Night Football'.

This season, NFL viewers have an extra dose of Faith. Waiting All Day for Sunday Night is performed by Faith Hill at the start of each NBC "Sunday Night Football" telecast on the 2007 schedule. Set to the Joan Jett tune I Hate Myself for Loving You, the song is tailored to the two teams playing on the given Sunday; on October 21, the Pittsburgh Steelers face the Denver Broncos in Colorado.

Five-time Grammy winner Hill says NBC and NFL executives "just called and asked if I'd be interested in being the voice for the song, and I was blown away. It's a big deal.

"I can remember, as a child, hearing the music that would introduce the NBC news. I knew that would be the time I had to finish my homework and dinner would be ready. That is just embedded in my brain, and it's similar with the NFL situation. They play the song throughout the entire game, in the background or going to a commercial."

One sign of football's status as a Sunday tradition, Hill notes, is that "people are always rushing home from church to catch the game if you're Catholic, you're lucky - you can go during the day or at night. My mom struggled; it was like, 'I've gotta make it home for the (New Orleans) Saints game!' but she never wavered. She always went to church first."

latest single

Hill is no stranger to doing certain songs countless times, as with Breathe and This Kiss, both included on her new CD The Hits (along with her latest single, Red Umbrella). She explains that for the football theme, overseen by her longtime producer Byron Gallimore, "I recorded several different versions because there's the opening night, there's the wild card, etc. Mostly, though, I would just insert each week's game after I had completed the overall song."

With her devotion to New Orleans' post-Hurricane Katrina recovery, Hill admits to a special thrill in singing the Saints' name.

"Hopefully, I'll be able to go back in and sing Tennessee Titans, " she says of her favourite team, which could wind up on 'SNF' through the network's flexible schedule. "Maybe the season will change and they'll be added to the list somehow. I've already asked the NFL and NBC about it."

Hill and her husband, fellow country superstar Tim McGraw, share a passion for football. It's part of a home life that includes their three daughters, three big reasons she says the couple's second, recently ended 'Soul2Soul' concert tour was their last.

"The girls are back in school, so I've shifted into another gear by releasing this album and doing the NFL song. It's kind of busy around here, but it's also exciting and fun. With the exception of television shows I might do in New York or Los Angeles, everything comes here (to Nashville, where the family lives) - all my photo and recording sessions, all the interviews, etc."

Also helping to keep an even keel is the balance Hill and McGraw maintain between their careers, their past two summers of touring together notwithstanding. When work is busier for him, she's generally at home with their children, and vice versa. These days, he's playing househusband while she's promoting The Hits.

"I'm usually done by 3 or 4 in the afternoon," Hill says, "but it's still exhausting. Then there's dinner, then there's homework, then there's baths. Every mother has that, so it's really no different. The coup I have is that there's someone to 'decorate' me; otherwise, I'd show up with a ponytail and no makeup."

brilliantly written

Not every mom has a spouse whose name is the title of a hit song, either. Teenager Taylor Swift exploded onto the country charts and award circuit with Tim McGraw, which Hill deems "brilliantly written. I mean, to be so young, but forget her age; she's talking about a Tim McGraw song bringing back the memory of a time when she and her boyfriend were together.

"She's a great, talented writer, and she opened a few shows for us this past summer. We got to see firsthand that she really has a gift. She's very in tune with what works for her, so I see a bright future for her, for sure."

While the NFL connection and her first greatest hits collection are in her professional forefront now, Hill says her fans should expect something 'radically different' from her next album, which she's just starting to work on.

"I have no idea what the outcome will be. I'm always under deadline to finish things, even though 'The Hits' is only my eighth album over a 14-year career. I just asked that this time, I be given the time to rediscover myself. When I was on this latest tour, I realised there was something inside me that I've got to get out, and I've got to get it on record."