Summary
2008 single by Carrie Underwood
| Field | Value |
|---|
| name | Last Name |
| cover | Carrie-Underwood-Last-Name-offic-cover.jpg |
| border | yes |
| type | single |
| artist | Carrie Underwood |
| album | Carnival Ride |
| released | April 8, 2008 (U.S.) |
| recorded | 2007 |
| studio | Starstruck Studios (Nashville, TN) |
| genre | Country rock |
| length | 4:02 |
| label | Arista Nashville |
| writer | |
| producer | Mark Bright |
| prev_title | All-American Girl |
| prev_year | 2007 |
| next_title | Praying for Time |
| next_year | 2008 |
| misc | |
"Last Name" is a song recorded by American country music singer Carrie Underwood and written by Underwood, Hillary Lindsey, and Luke Laird. It is the third single from Underwood's second studio album, Carnival Ride. It was released in the United States on April 7, 2008, by which point the song had already charted. At the 51st Grammy Awards, the song won Underwood her third consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. It has sold 1,300,000 copies to date.
Background
The song is one of four tracks on the album co-written by Underwood, and the third consecutive one to be released as a single from the album.
Content
The song is a moderate up-tempo describing a woman meeting a man at a club and later eloping with him in Las Vegas after having had too much to drink that night. She wakes up the next morning, "thinkin' 'bout Elvis somewhere in Vegas", to discover that she does not even know her last name (i.e., she married the man while she was still intoxicated), and worries that her "mama would be so ashamed." The music video portrays the song as a prequel to her "Before He Cheats" song, even going so far as to hire the same actor to play the man in question.
Critical reception
The single was generally met with mixed reviews.
Allmusic picked the song as a "track pick", calling the song "Miranda Lambert filtered through Shania Twain", and dubbed it a "one night stand anthem."{{cite web
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071031224626/http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/16861628/review/17118258/carnival_ride
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = October 31, 2007
|url-status = dead
|url-status=dead
However, it also received some negative reviews: Engine 145 gave the song a 'thumbs down', describing the song as a "straight-laced performance" that just "places the focus on the vocal". Slant Magazine labelled the single as a "bald-faced attempt at recreating the 'Before He Cheats' phenomenon".
Awards
35th People's Choice Awards
|-
51st Grammy Awards
|-
2010 CMA Triple-Play Awards
|-
2009 BMI Awards
|-
Music video
The song is described in the video as what happened before the "Before He Cheats" video.
The video starts with some segments from "Before He Cheats" and then goes into a scene three months earlier ("before he cheated", it says) with her in the club drinking with her friends. The same man from the "Before He Cheats" spots her and asks her for a dance. From this point on, while the guy is with Underwood, he is flirting with every other woman he sees. After the dance, Underwood leaves with the guy in his car with fuzzy dice in the rear view mirror. They make it out to Las Vegas where they participate in a couple of gambling activities such as roulette and a Wheel of Fortune game where they win a new truck. Later they get married in a chapel with an Elvis impersonator officiating. They run off in his new pickup truck (the one used in "Before He Cheats") and the video ends with a spark from the chapel sign lights.
Charts
Year-end charts
| Chart (2008) | Position |
|---|
| US Country Songs (Billboard) | 27 |
Release history
| Region | Date | Format | Label |
|---|
| United States | April 8, 2008 | Airplay | Arista Nashville |
| Canada | Sony Music | | |
| United Kingdom | April 9, 2008 | | |
Cover versions
- Kristin Chenoweth performed a cover of the song in the Fox comedy-musical Glee.