How a ’90s country classic took over country radio in 2022

Messina warned him that her album was accomplished, however he might drop off the demo if he actually wished. Nichols left a cassette tape in her mailbox and moments after Messina hit play, she simply had a sense about “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” the story of a pair that flips a coin to see the place to go as they flee their sleepy small city. Messina performed it for her producers, Tim McGraw and Byron Gallimore, they usually had the identical response: “Oh man — we’ve got to chop this.”

Flash ahead round 25 years, and nation star Cole Swindell confronted an identical predicament. His fourth studio album was due, however he and his collaborators had an thought he was decided to squeeze onto the report — an interpolation of Messina’s music, which had turn out to be a ’90s nation basic. Swindell instructed his report label that the music was virtually written — in actuality, he had not but began — they usually gave him some leeway.

The monitor was well worth the wait: Swindell’s “She Had Me At Heads Carolina,” a few man falling for a lady who performs Messina’s hit at a karaoke bar, is likely one of the greatest nation songs of the 12 months, touchdown at No. 7 on Billboard’s year-end country chart. It’s additionally the second-longest-running No. 1 music on nation radio in 2022 — the uncommon monitor to high the charts for 5 weeks — and is licensed platinum, incomes greater than 300 million world streams.

The total-circle nature of all of it stays magical and a bit mystifying to each Swindell, 39, and Messina, 52, who’ve fashioned an surprising bond this 12 months. The music’s monumental success launched Swindell to a brand new echelon of fame in his 10-year Nashville profession and despatched Messina, a beloved nation star who had a string of hits within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, again into the highlight. Right here’s the story of the way it all got here collectively.

A magical nation music second

Robert James Waller’s novel “Border Music,” printed a number of years after his megahit “The Bridges of Madison County,” didn’t go away a lot impression past some harsh critiques, however it did present Nichols the inspiration for Messina’s breakout hit.

“The primary character’s identify was Texas Jack Carmine,” he stated. “The identify alone ought to have tipped me off that guide wasn’t going to be nice.”

Struggling by way of the “dangerous audiobook,” Nichols listened as Texas Jack, who wanted to get out of city, flipped a coin to determine whether or not he ought to go to California or Mexico. That idea caught in Nichols’s head as he arrived at his weekly writing session with Sanders.

“I used to be making an attempt to channel Bruce Springsteen and Jack Kerouac,” Sanders stated. “And I used to be interested by my spouse’s hometown of Brewton, Alabama, which has an enormous paper mill.”

Thus, the opening traces had been born: “We should always have identified it the day they shut that paper mill down / There’d be no future for us, no extra in our little city / I’ve received folks in Austin, ain’t your daddy nonetheless in Des Moines? / We are able to pack up tomorrow, tonight let’s flip a coin / Heads Carolina, tails California, someplace greener, someplace hotter …”

As followers of the unique know, these aren’t the lyrics that Messina recorded. As a Massachusetts native, she was unfamiliar with paper mills, however she apprehensive about offending Nichols and Sanders by asking if they might change the phrases. Undeterred, they swiftly wrote a brand new opening, even swapping Austin for Boston to symbolize her house state: “Child, what do you say we simply get misplaced? Depart this one-horse city like two rebels with out a trigger / I’ve received folks in Boston, ain’t your daddy nonetheless in De Moines?”

“It simply will get your adrenaline going, ?” Messina stated. “It was, ‘It’s me and also you in opposition to the world.’”

Her label launched it as the primary single off her self-titled debut album in January 1996 and the up-tempo monitor flew up the charts. Although everybody assumes it went straight to No. 1, it really received caught at No. 2 for a number of weeks behind Brooks & Dunn’s “My Maria.” (“Maria received in my method!” Messina stated, laughing, although she has no exhausting emotions, particularly as a result of Brooks & Dunn took her on tour.)

Nichols stated when he first heard Messina performing “Heads Carolina,” he was reminded of Trisha Yearwood’s “She’s in Love With the Boy” and Religion Hill’s “Wild One,” two smashes that helped launch them to stardom. “No matter magic these two songs had, I believed ‘Heads Carolina’ had the identical factor,” he stated.

Swindell launched his Nashville profession with “Chillin’ It” in 2013 — it went No. 1 and he’s had a slew of hits ever since. However a decade into his profession, he wished to take an opportunity on one thing totally different. Throughout a dialog final 12 months along with his writer Rusty Gaston, chief govt of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville, they began speaking about Swindell placing his personal spin on a ’90s nation hit. (Nation music is in the course of a surge of ’90s nostalgia.) One basic that occurred to be within the Sony catalogue was “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” which Gaston talked about was extraordinarily widespread at karaoke.

Though Swindell cherished the thought, he was nervous, particularly paying homage to a music and artist that he “grew up on once I was falling in love with nation music.” However as soon as he received permission from the unique songwriters, he gathered a bunch of trusted collaborators for the writing course of.

Initially, the plan was for the music to be a duet with nation star Thomas Rhett, Swindell’s longtime pal and tour-mate. “There’s one thing anthemic about that music that has resonated for the world,” stated Rhett, who, like Swindell, initially hails from Southern Georgia. “The primary line that got here to my head was ‘Possibly she’d fall for a boy from South Georgia; heads Carolina, tails California.’”

The singers received along with Nashville songwriter/producers/hitmakers Ashley Gorley and Jesse Frasure. “Each Jesse and I grew up on numerous hip-hop and R&B music, the place they sampled numerous stuff,” Gorley stated, noting that sampling and interpolations are nonetheless uncommon in nation music. He instantly latched on to the “Heads Carolina” idea, although he stated all of them felt the strain of adapting such a well-known music and switching from the feminine to male perspective.

“We had been all obsessive about the thought of doing it and all of us wished to essentially cautious: ‘We are able to’t make this tacky, we are able to’t do that fallacious, we’ve got to honor the unique,’” Gorley stated.

At first, Fraser stated, the group thought of a duet just like the 1982 Paul McCartney-Michael Jackson music “The Lady is Mine,” the place Swindell and Rhett compete for the affections of the lady singing “Heads Carolina” — possibly they might use the coin flip to see who “gained” the prospect to speak to her. However as they toyed with the thought, they puzzled if it could work higher as a Swindell solo effort.

“As soon as we type of stated, ‘Let’s cease making an attempt to make this a TR and Cole duet’ and tapped into this karaoke second, it did open up this concept,” Frasure stated. They solidified the lyrics, during which the narrator and “Heads Carolina” karaoke-singing lady bond over their love of ’90s nation: “She’s a ’90s nation fan, like I’m / Hey, I received a Chevy, she will flip 1 / 4, I’d drive her wherever from right here to California / When this music is over, I gotta discover her, trigger she had me at ‘Heads Carolina’ …”

When the demo began making the rounds, it immediately struck a chord with songwriter-producer Zach Crowell, who lobbied Cris Lacy, co-president at Swindell’s label Warner Music Nashville, to supply the music.

“Once I heard it, I used to be, first off, immediately jealous as a songwriter I wasn’t a part of writing that music,” stated Crowell, who introduced in singer-songwriter Madeline Merlo to sing backup vocals. “I hardly ever have that feeling — however once I heard it, I actually simply wished to be a part of it.”

‘You knew from the get-go’

Throughout the writing course of, Rhett remembers pondering, “Dang, this type of seems like a smash.” Swindell remembers Crowell saying, “That is going to be completely large.” Swindell nonetheless wasn’t certain.

“I respect Jo Dee and ’90s nation and the songwriters a lot,” he stated. “I simply didn’t know the way everybody was going to take it.”

They took it very nicely: The impossibly catchy hook mixed with the familiarity of the unique immediately related with listeners. Swindell held an album launch occasion in April, and despite the fact that “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” was barely 24 hours previous, followers misplaced their minds.

“These folks within the viewers had been simply screaming it, partly as a result of they’ve heard it earlier than,” Frasure stated. “That’s the great thing about an interpolation when it’s accomplished proper.”

The music was launched as a single in June and 12 weeks later it topped the radio chart, the fastest-rising single of Swindell’s profession. “Individuals at the moment are coming to exhibits actually to listen to that one music,” he stated.

“From day one, you couldn’t not see it throughout TikTok, Instagram, YouTube,” Rhett stated. “You knew from the get-go that this was going to be an enormous hit. However I don’t suppose any of us knew it was going to be a five-week No. 1 music.”

Jo Dee Messina takes heart stage

Years later, audiences nonetheless go wild when Messina performs “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” and he or she hears numerous tales of how the music impressed folks to flip a coin and determine the place to maneuver. However she was nonetheless shocked final 12 months when she received a textual content from Nichols saying, “Hey, I simply wished to present you a heads up that this music was recorded,” together with a duplicate of Swindell’s model.

“At first I used to be type of like, ‘Okay!’ and brought aback a bit,” she stated. “Then I listened to it and I used to be like, ‘Okay, what a fantastic tackle the music’ … I imply, what an exquisite factor to have that music thought of to be a karaoke staple.”

Then she heard from Swindell and his label that he was desirous to do one other remixed model of “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” that he would sing together with her.

“It was all the time the plan — the followers had been shedding it, saying, ‘You gotta put out a model with Jo Dee!’” Swindell stated. “I wished to say, ‘Simply be affected person.’” He emphasizes repeatedly that none of this might have been potential with out Messina, and he was thrilled to movie the music video together with her taking part in the bartender. (Nichols, and a photograph of Sanders, make cameos as nicely.)

The 2 met up within the studio a number of weeks earlier than the Nation Music Affiliation Awards in November and labored with Crowell, adjusting the important thing so it could work in each vocal ranges. The music was launched proper earlier than the CMAs, and the day of the show, Messina purposely didn’t stroll the pink carpet in order that viewers could be shocked throughout Swindell’s efficiency when she strolled out to sing the music with him.

Positive sufficient, her look drew one of many greatest roars of the night time — Swindell decked out in fringe, Messina in leopard print — as the 2 sported big grins and Messina flawlessly belted out the refrain, with 1000’s singing alongside.

“Mark D. Sanders was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I noticed you on the CMAs, you probably did such a fantastic job,’” Messina stated. “I stated, ‘Nicely, that goes to indicate you’ve got written a music that has offered a lifetime of happiness.’”

A life-changing hit — once more

Messina has stored writing songs and touring — all of this ’90s country nostalgia has resulted in sold-out exhibits — however she’s acquired an surprising stage of consideration this 12 months.

“It’s modified my complete trajectory for 2023,” she stated, including that she’s turn out to be extra lively on social media, the place she’s been flooded with messages asking what she’s so far. “Now we’ve got new music that’s popping out … it actually has modified what the longer term appears to be like like.”

The songwriters had been equally greatly surprised by the success — even for constant hitmakers like Rhett, Gorley, Frasure and Crowell, a five-week No. 1 is pretty unprecedented — and Swindell is grateful to everybody who was concerned. He’s nicely conscious these conditions don’t occur usually: After you’re previous the “new artist” part in Nashville, you need to work and alter issues as much as sustain the momentum, although he by no means anticipated this.

“It’s loopy what a music can do,” Swindell stated. “I’ve identified that, however I by no means thought one after 10 years might take me to a very totally different stage. I’ve been saying it’s top-of-the-line years of my life, and numerous that’s due to what this music has accomplished for me and my complete staff.”