Newcomer Greylan James is just starting to make a name for himself as an artist, but you probably already know a handful of songs he helped write — Kenny Chesney‘s “Happy Does” and Cole Swindell‘s “Forever to Me” among them.
But it was an ACM Award-winning Jordan Davis song that changed everything for him.
“‘Next Thing You Know,’ I mean, really came out of nowhere,” Greylan remembers. “When we wrote that song, we were just tryin’ to write a song about life, and we honestly thought nobody was ever really gonna hear it. It was just gonna be kind of a song that maybe was a B-side on a Jordan album.”
“But it’s just been such a powerful reminder that great songs win, still today,” he adds.
Greylan’s been able to see the personal impact of his song firsthand.
“They come up to me like, ‘Dude, “Next Thing You Know” is about my life. I swear to God you guys wrote it about me,”” he says. “And going into my artist thing now and, like, working on my first album, it really reminds me of what kinda songs I want on my project.”
Greylan’s current single, “Wait Til You Have Kids,” expresses a similar sentiment, inspired by something his mom used to say to him.
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