Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what’s gonna be a hit. Just ask Russell Dickerson.
“‘Bones’ I thought was the one, right?” he says. “It’s like ‘Yours’ part two. ‘Yours’ was such a big hit for me. And you just can’t [predict]. I don’t know. I thought that was it.”
Though “Bones” was climbing the chart, after releasing “Happen to Me,” it was clear it should be Russell’s radio single.
The breakthrough in the writing room owes a tip of the hat to Cyndi Lauper and her 1983 signature song, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
“This girl, she’s going through something, right? That’s kinda what it’s about,” Russell says. “I was like, ‘What would a girl just be screaming at the top of her lungs?””
“And we were just like, ‘And now she’s singing girls just want to have fun,”” he recalls as he starts to sing. “From there on out, we were just like, ‘Oh my!’ We knew it was a great song, but I didn’t know it was this big of a viral hit.”
“Happen to Me” certainly owes some of its viral cred to Russell’s own fancy footwork.
“The dance is just me being dumb,” he tells ABC Audio. “I wasn’t like trying to make a specific thing. But the point and the wave — I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not the viral guy.”
“Happen to Me” just broke into country’s top 25, and is the fastest-rising single and biggest streaming debut of Russell’s career.
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