How Carrie Underwood Turned a Messy Dating Story Into a Grammy-Winning Song in 2008

By 2008, Carrie Underwood was quite accustomed to having hit singles on the radio. So when she released “Last Name”, it’s not surprising that the song became a No.1 single. What might be surprising, however, is the inspiration behind the song.

Underwood wrote “Last Name” with Luke Laird and Hillary Lindsey. The song is the third and final single from Carnival Ride, Underwood’s sophomore album.

“Last Name” tells a humorous story of a woman who drank too much and, while inebriated, got married to a man she doesn’t know. The chorus says, “I don’t even know my last name / Oh, my mama would be so ashamed / It started off, ‘Hey, cutie, where you from?’ / And then it turned into, ‘Oh, no! What have I done?’ / And I don’t even know my last name.”

Although the story is, fortunately, fictitious, Underwood was inspired to write the song by a former relationship.

“I met a guy at an after-party and asked him his last name three times, but it never stuck,” Underwood recalls. “He got my number, we talked a few times, and I didn’t know what his last name was. I was way past the point where I should have known his last name, and if I asked him, I knew it would offend him.”

What Inspired Carrie Underwood to Write “Last Name”

Later, Underwood shared more of the story a few years later, after she married her husband, Mike Fisher, in 2010.

“I got together with Hillary Lindsey and Luke Laird to write, and we were goofing around like we always do,” Underwood remembers. “I was telling them about this guy I met. They asked who he was, and I said, ‘Y’all! I don’t even know his last name!’”

“We hadn’t even dated or anything, and it didn’t turn out the way this song did,” she adds. “But I said, ‘We need to turn this mess into a song!’ And this is it.”

Laird reinforces Underwood’s story, which he says they all three found funny, at least in hindsight.

“Carrie was telling us about meeting some guy at a post-Oscar party,” Laird tells The Boot. “The guy got her number, but when he called her, she realized she didn’t even know his last name. He called her a couple of times, but she said it was past the point of her asking him his last name. Anyway, when Carrie told us that story, we all just ran with ‘last name,’ and came up with a fun storyline. Very fun day! We laughed a lot.”

Carnival Ride also includes “So Small” and “All-American Girl”, both No. 1 hits for Underwood. Underwood won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for this song.

Photo by Michael Caulfield/WireImage

The post How Carrie Underwood Turned a Messy Dating Story Into a Grammy-Winning Song in 2008 appeared first on American Songwriter.