Best-selling artist Lauren Daigle (“How Can It Be?” “Trust in You”) appeared at the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards on Tuesday evening as a presenter, taking home her latest award for a collaboration with NeedtoBreathe on the song “Hard Love.” Through a random request, however, Daigle’s musical reach moved past the church and onto the soundtrack for Blade Runner 2049.
Speaking with the media backstage during the show, the 26-year-old singer from Lafayette, Louisiana, explained how her voice, known primarily in Christian music circles, appeared on the soundtrack for the major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford:
The process started when a stranger called Daigle and asked her if she was interested in music for Blade Runner 2049.
“He was the one who was compiling all the music for it, and he’s a Christian. He kind of sat me down and said, ‘We want to have your voice on this project. Would you be interested?’ So I just went away and said, ‘Lord, I need you to give me strategy on this. Is this something you want me to be part of?’ I couldn’t get away from the idea of every person that’s in those theaters that are watching Blade Runner that might not know who God is, that might need His hope, that might need His love, the things that we as Christians offer the world and bring to the world. What does that look like? I was able to write a song on the project, and people get to hear it. That was enough for me. Just being able to see God intersect lanes that I haven’t walked in before that I’m honestly so honored just to be a part. I feel like He breathed on it.
“We were in the writing room, and the symbolism is that there are characters in the movies who are ‘replicants,’ and then there are humans. The replicants are kind of like the artificial intelligence, and they long to be human. I thought ‘I can kind of put that in my own way of we as humans, we hear the ‘God-shaped hole,’ that reference. We all have just this place of longing, that we want to know who God is. We long for God in ways that sometimes we don’t even see. This song is about that place of recognizing our longing and recognizing who we are apart from Him and then who we are when we come in to what He has in store for us.
Daigle also premiered the song on her Facebook page and offered an explanation to fans.
“What I wrote this post for was you, the listener, to honor every supporter of my music this far with an explanation and to invite more to the table. You might have questions. Trust me, I do too. But I’d rather walk into unfamiliar places with purpose than stay safe within the walls of complacency. I never know where the road goes, but I know where it leads. I’m excited for people I’ve never met to be inspired and to feel a love that transforms all of humanity.”
“Almost Human” is available on iTunes and Spotify. {eoa}
DeWayne Hamby is a communications specialist longtime journalist covering faith-based music, entertainment, books and the retail industry. He is also the editor of the White Wing Messenger, director of communications for the Church of God of Prophecy and author of the book Gratitude Adjustment. Connect with him at www.dewaynehamby.com or on Twitter— @dewaynehamby.
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