• November 8, 1994
• Lauren Alaina started to sing at the age of 3. Her mom, Kristy, first noted her talent when was riding in the car singing along to a Dixie Chicks hit on the radio. When Kristy turned the radio off, the 3-year-old Lauren kept singing every word in pitch.
• She was a classmate of fellow country artist Kane Brown at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School, in their native Georgia. As a shy student, Brown refused to sing in class until one day Alaina heard him humming and coaxed him into singing aloud in front of her and the other students.
• Lauren successfully auditioned for the 10th season of American Idol, going all the way to the final before finishing as runner-up to Scotty McCreery. She later recalled:
  
  "I said from the time I was 6 years old I was gonna be on American Idol. When that moment finally came and I was actually on that stage in front of those judges, I just remember thinking, 'You cannot mess this up. Be yourself. Be yourself.' When they gave me that ticket, girl, you would've thought I won the lottery, like a billion dollars. I mean, nothing in that moment could be more special to me, because that's all I wanted for 10 years, and it finally happened, and it started everything for me."
• Her debut single was released immediately after American Idol's finale on May 25, 2011. An uplifting ode to maternal love and strength, "Like My Mother Does," was an apt choice for Alaina. "My mom's been beside me through this whole thing," she said. "Every time I've gotten upset, she's always been there to pick me up. So I feel like it's really great for me to sing this song just for her, because she deserves it."
• The title track of Lauren Alaina's She's A Wildflower album describes her well. "I would consider myself a wildflower because wildflowers are sweet, but then they have a little bit of spunk to them," she said. "I like to have a lot of fun and I'm really sassy, so I feel like a wildflower would be a good description of who I am as a person."
• Prior to Idol, Alaina worked at CiCi's Pizza. Her old boss, Mike Wild, remembers her singing, whistling, and humming around the restaurant. "Now I have thoughts like, 'I may have asked the next American Idol to sweep crumbs up off the floor," he told the The Times Free Press in 2011.
• If Alaina hadn't made it as a singer, she'd have worked with children or disabled adults. She told The Boot she's coached teams and made the Special Olympics a priority since the sixth grade. "So I always said that if I never made it in the music business, I wanted to be a pediatrician or a special needs teacher."
• Lauren Alaina published her first book, Getting Good At Being You, on November 7, 2021. The faith-based tome is about her path to loving herself again.
• Lauren Alaina married her fiancé Cam Arnold at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville on February 4, 2024. They tied the knot in front of 450 guests, including fellow country stars Jason Aldean, Hardy, Lindsay Ell, and Shay Mooney of Dan + Shay.
• Lauren Alaina was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on February 12, 2022 by her idol, Trisha Yearwood. The moment came as a complete shock – the American Idol alumna thought Yearwood was there to talk about the foreword she'd written for Alaina's book.

Comments

More Songfacts:

The Candy ManSammy Davis, Jr.

"The Candy Man" is the opening song in the 1971 movie Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, but the version released as a single was by Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr. It was a #1 hit and became his signature song even though his audience was very adult.

Gives You HellThe All-American Rejects

The first US Top 10 hit with the word "hell" in the title was "Gives You Hell" by The All-American Rejects in 2008.

Live Like You Were DyingTim McGraw

Tim McGraw recorded "Live Like You Were Dying" just two weeks after his own father passed away.

AdornMiguel

Miguel wrote "Adorn" about his girlfriend, the model and artist Nazanin Mandi, when he was returning home from a long trip and was anxious to see her.

The JokerSteve Miller Band

The "pompatus of love" from the Steve Miller song "The Joker" comes from a line in a '50s doo-wop song Miller misheard: "puppetutes of love."

Suddenly I SeeKT Tunstall

KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See" was inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe's photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of her album Horses.

Editor's Picks

Timothy B. Schmit of the EaglesSongwriter Interviews

Did this Eagle come up with the term "Parrothead"? And what is it like playing "Hotel California" for the gazillionth time?

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.

Gilby ClarkeSongwriter Interviews

The Guns N' Roses rhythm guitarist in the early '90s, Gilby talks about the band's implosion and the side projects it spawned.

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Dino Cazares of Fear FactorySongwriter Interviews

The guitarist/songwriter explains how he came up with his signature sound, and deconstructs some classic Fear Factory songs.

Dave EdmundsSongwriter Interviews

A renowned guitarist and rock revivalist, Dave took "I Hear You Knocking" to the top of the UK charts and was the first to record Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk."