Lauren Daigle’s star continues to rise. The Grammy-winning singer is about to embark on a world tour and recently took home three trophies at the 50th annual Dove Awards. Speaking in the press room after her wins, Daigle shared how her experience touring shaped the writing of Look Up Child and how she copes with the challenges of her career.
“It’s the people in this room that have held me up through this journey,” said Daigle at the awards. “It’s been profound, it’s been vast and it’s been wild.”
Lauren Daigle at the Dove Awards
Daigle took home Dove awards for Song of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year.
She was also nominated for Songwriter of the Year-Artist, Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year, and Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year. Her wins bring Daigle’s total number of Dove Awards to 10, not counting her previous nominations, and this is the second time she has won Artist of the Year.
Ahhh!! Honored with three @GMADoveAwards for Artist of the Year, Song of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year! It is incredible to see the impact these songs and the album are having in peoples lives and throughout our music community ✨ – Team LD pic.twitter.com/mdMvUWLRJ0
— Lauren Daigle (@Lauren_Daigle) October 16, 2019
Setting More Records
Daigle’s popular song, “You Say,” from the album, Look Up Child, recently set the record for the longest running song on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart. As of this writing, “You Say” has remained in the number one spot on the chart for 64 consecutive weeks.
The song that previously held that record was “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” by Hillsong United. Reflecting on the impact that “Oceans” has had on people, Daigle said, “I hoped that I could be a part of something that shakes the earth like that song. I didn’t know that would ever happen, and I had no idea that ‘You Say’ would be something that would parallel the life of ‘Oceans.’”
In January, “You Say” broke a different record, when it made Daigle the female artist with the longest running single on the Hot Christians Songs chart.
Learning and Growing
In the press room after her Dove wins, Daigle said that touring for her album, How Can It Be, set the stage for the creation of Look Up Child. She was “brand new” when she wrote How Can It Be, said Daigle, adding “I felt so green, had no idea what I was doing.” But she toured for that album for three to four years, and during that time, she learned what she called the “weight of a song,” that is, what it means to sing the same song every night and to see God move through it.
So when it came time to write Look Up Child, Daigle knew she wanted “a little piece of home” with her when she eventually toured for that album. So she went home to Louisiana for six months where, she said, “I would let where I came from kind of seep back into my bones, and I would walk around the pond at my parents’ house and just talk to the Lord, and honestly, that’s kind of where a lot of it started…I feel like what the Lord opened in my heart back home is what He got to complete here in Nashville with my producers.”
When asked what “keeps her going,” Daigle said it was other people’s stories. Recently, she was having a rough day and was struggling with a bad attitude when she had meet-and-greets with two families. Each family had experienced a child being diagnosed with cancer. One family’s story was that their child was now cancer-free, but the other family’s child had passed away. Said Daigle, “That will change you. That will take you out of the places that your head can go to—your pride, your disappointment, your frustration. All those things.”
Daigle also shared a little about her struggle with feeling normal, saying there is an emotional high from performing that is hard to recover from. “You get so high that normal feels really low,” she said. So she’s had to learn how not to get carried away by the intensity of that feeling.
At the same time, it’s a struggle not to doubt herself or compare herself to others. “I think that comparison is a thief,” she said and observed that comparing yourself to others reinforces doubt. Even when it comes to her recent awards, Daigle said it’s easy to feel insecure and start wondering why she only won three awards instead of all six. To combat this mindset, she works on being grateful for what she has been given.
And that attitude of thankfulness was on display that evening. “Just to see the support of so many people, it’s really, really moving. It’s overwhelming,” she said.
