See Lauren Alaina’s Emotional Performance of ‘Three’

Lauren Alaina paints an autobiographical picture of her climb to success in the heartfelt track “Three,” and a new performance video puts the personal meaning behind her words in stark relief.

Co-written by Alaina with Seth Ennis and Jordan Reynolds, “Three” comes from the 2017 album Road Less Traveled and lays out the things she left behind to follow her dreams. The country chart-topper (as a featured vocalist on Kane Brown’s “What Ifs” and with her own “Road Less Traveled”) was just 15 when she started out on American Idol, sacrificing many of the typical teenage experiences most people take for granted.

In the video, Alaina delivers the song as a simple-and-straightforward ballad, showing off her dynamic vocal presence and the track’s impactful storyline with the help of an acoustic guitar, a piano and a suitcase drum kit. She sings of missing birthday parties and family milestones, church services and even a budding romance, with much of the plot revolving around the number three. But ultimately, she decides the effort was all worth it.

“Six years of missing home / But I’d spend 50 more gone / For three minutes on the radio,” goes the song’s payoff line.

Alaina is currently on the road as part of Jason Aldean’s High Noon Neon Tour, with coast-to-coast dates scheduled through September 29th in Irvine, California. She’s recently been documenting trials of another sort, keeping fans updated about her stepfather’s battle with Stage IV melanoma via social media.