You certainly think of Eminem as the kind of artist who’d end up inspiring a country hit. But for Dylan Scott, the “Lose Yourself” rapper is the exact reason the Louisiana singer/songwriter is now on the Billboard Hot 100.
When Scott initially wrote “My Girl” about five years ago, it was essentially a love letter to the woman that is now his wife, Blair. The two did long distance for six years, with Scott living in Nashville and Blair living in Louisiana. One day when they were together, Eminem came on the radio — and the rest is history.
“She was rapping Eminem when we were riding down the road one day, and I thought it was pretty hot,” Scott explains to Billboard. “So I told a buddy, ‘Hey let’s write a song about that moment right there.’ From that moment, it took us to other things that reminded me of my girl.”
While the Eminem line (“I love it when she raps to an Eminem song/ That’s my girl”) is specific to one of Scott’s favorite memories of Blair, he knows he’s not the only guy who notices little moments like that with their girl — which is exactly why he wrote “My Girl,” and likely what’s taken the song all the way to No. 13 on the Country Airplay chart, and No. 83 on the Hot 100 (both dated May 27).
Billboard chatted with Scott when “My Girl” hit No. 85 on the Hot 100. Below is an edited transcript of the singer-songwriter’s words during the interview.
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I just feel like people can really relate to it. There’s a line in the first verse that says, ‘You should see her smile when she holds a baby.’ I mean, as a guy, when a woman holds a baby, the first thing they do is start smiling. That’s it. I’m sure everybody’s got an Eminem moment, whether it’s with Eminem, or their girl is dancing in the car, or the girl’s on the phone with their mom and they’re giddy. It’s all the little things throughout the song that are relatable. As guys, we see that every day in our girl.
I really, honestly didn’t even think about recording this song because it’s such a personal song to me – it’s about my wife, my girlfriend at the time. In my mind, I was thinking, nobody wants to hear my sappy little love story. Even though, when I wrote the song, I wanted people to relate to it. As people started hearing it throughout Curb Records and Curb Publishing and coming to me saying, ‘Hey, this is very relatable,’ I got to thinking, ‘Maybe I should consider this.’ As I was writing it, I never would’ve thought it’d be my highest-charting single to date.
I saw [the Hot 100] on Twitter — I was at the gym, and I thought it was like, Hot 100 country charts. So I’m like, “Oh that’s cool, we’re at 85 on the Hot 100 country charts.” But I got to lookin’ at it, and was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is a lot more than country right here.’
It was kind of mind-blowing to be honest, because at the time we were right behind Thomas Rhett’s “Craving You.” And Thomas Rhett, he’s killing it right now. The guy’s blowing up, so to be two spots behind that, and be in mixed company with all these other pop stars and hip-hop artists, that was a big deal to me. I was kind of blown away by it. You have to understand — in my mind, I’m still the guy next door. To see myself as a country artist inside the top 100 with all these other artists… I feel like I’m actually doin’ somethin’.
The lesson I learned [from the success of “My Girl”] was, forget how personal or sappy it is — if it’s a great song, you should record it. I don’t want to go too sappy all the time, but there probably will be more sappy songs in the future at some point. I just have to keep doing me. It’s worked so far, as far as people relating to what I do and the music I put out, so I’m just going to keep doing the same thing and hope for the best that we continue to project upwards.
But I’ve got my girl, and she’s preggo. If it’s a girl, I can write another one called “My Girls”!
[via Billboard]
