Russell Dickerson‘s “Happen to Me” is his biggest hit yet, thanks in part to the TikTok dance videos he’s made to promote it and the fact that it quotes Cyndi Lauper‘s classic song “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” According to Russell, however, he and his co-writers weren’t trying to create something that would blow up online when they wrote it.
“We were writing it, it was just … like, this girl, she’s going through something, right? That’s kinda what it’s about,” Russell told ABC Audio. “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 continued, breaking into the line from Cyndi’s song. “From there on out, we were just like, ‘Oh my….!’ Like, we knew it was a great song, but I didn’t know it was this big of a viral hit.”
It’s probably fair to say the song wouldn’t have become a viral hit without Russell’s goofy dance moves, which he’s the first to admit aren’t exactly slick.
“The dance is just me being dumb. I wasn’t, like, trying to make a specific thing,” he said. “But the point and the wave – I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not the viral guy!”
As it turns out, Russell is the viral guy. He recently wrote on Instagram that his “stupid dance…changed the trajectory of my career in absolutely every respect!”
Now, Russell’s already thinking about what sons Remington and Radford, 5 and 2, respectively, will think about their old man when they’re old enough to look back at those videos.
“They"[ll be] like, ‘Dad you were such an idiot!"” he laughs. “They’re gonna love it!”
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