Last Name

"Last Name" is a song composed by country pop singer Carrie 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".

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. It 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 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 positive 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." Rolling Stone picked the track as their favorite, saying "the most fun is "Last Name," where she gets wasted and runs off to Vegas with a guy she doesn't know." Blender awarded the song four out of five stars, describing the song as the "most irresponsible (and fun) moment on the new album involves one wild night, one too many shots of Cuervo and one unexpected ring." Billboard gave a positive review of the track, praising the lyrics: "It's a cleverly penned lyric that hilariously celebrates drunken debauchery" as well as summing it up as "a performance that combines soulful vocals, edgy intensity and sassy attitude into a delicious cocktail."

However, it also received some negative reviews: The 9513 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

Won The 35th People's Choice Awards | 2009 People's Choice Award for Favorite Country Song
The 51st Grammy Awards | 2009 Best Female Country Vocal Performance

Promotion

Underwood performed the song live for the first time on Television during the 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on May 18, 2008. Thanks to the performance, the single rose over twenty spots on the iTunes Top 100 songs reaching a new peak of #25.
Underwood also performed the song live at the American Idol Season 7 finale on May 21, 2008 - the single reached a new digital download peak at #10 which helped the song to bow at #19 on Billboard Hot 100.

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.

Chart performance

The song debuted at #46 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, nearly a month before the single's official release. For the week of June 21, 2008 it rose from #5 to #1, to become her fifth straight Number One on the Billboard chart, her seventh straight Number One country single, and her eighth Number One Billboard single overall. This marked Carrie as the first solo female artist to have five consecutive #1s on the country survey in almost 20 years, since Rosanne Cash had a string of six No. 1 titles between 1987-89. It is the third Country number one from Carnival Ride and reached the top of the chart faster than the first two singles, taking only thirteen weeks. However, "Last Name" is the only #1 from Carrie to date that did not manage to stay at the top of this chart for more than one week, being pushed off by Kenny Chesney's "Better as a Memory". As of now, "Last Name" is enjoying mainstream cross-over airplay while new adds are on for the video on music television programs. 'Last Name' has sold about 720,000 downloads to date.

On the Hot 100 the song has reached #19, making it Underwood's sixth top twenty Hot 100 hit, and the second from Carnival Ride.

Cover versions

Kristin Chenoweth performed a cover of the song in the Fox comedy-musical Glee.

Translation

The phrase "Last Name" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Romanian, Ukrainian.