Drew Baldridge wrote “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” in 2018, long before he proposed to his wife Katie. The day he recorded his vocals for “She’s Somebody’s Daughter,” he opened a Country Aircheck and realized that Tenille Townes released a song of the same name. Two songs with the same title can’t vie for a coveted spot on country radio.
“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,'” Baldridge said. “I love her, and I love that song. And I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me. It’s the same title.'”
Baldridge and his label, at the time, opted to release his version of “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” to streaming services in 2019. However, the song generated little interest.
Cold River Records announced it was closing soon after, and Baldridge was without a record deal. By 2021, Baldridge proposed to Katie. “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” was still Katie’s favorite song, and he made a slower version so she and her father could dance to it at the couple’s wedding. The Baldridges went on their honeymoon, and the singer posted the song to his socials. He promised that if it generated 5,000 likes, he would release it. The following day, the video had 10 million views.
Drew Baldridge: “I Just Can’t Believe This Is Really Happening”
Three years later, Baldridge still doesn’t have a record label. But “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” is a Top 5 hit on country radio. He’s heard it’s the first Top 5 country radio hit by an independent artist. If and when the song goes to No. 1, it will be the first self-funded country chart-topper.
“I just can’t believe this is really happening,” Baldridge told American Songwriter. “I’m excited, and I want independent artists and independent songwriters to know that a lot of songwriters don’t want to write with independent artists that just stream because there’s no income really for them. I’ve seen songwriters really rally behind this because it means independent artists can take songs to radio. If artists took more songs to the radio, songwriters could make an income off the radio from independent artists. That’s a big big deal.”
“She’s Somebody’s Daughter” was initially a slow climber, but Baldridge was in control and kept applying pressure. He used the unrelenting work ethic he learned growing up on a farm in Marion County, Illinois.
He credits TikTok’s discovery tool for pushing “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” to viral status in 2021. Baldridge said, “It just really changed the game” for artists and songwriters to share music and interact with fans. Within days of its 2021 release, the song shot to No. 25 on Spotify Viral, was No. 8 in Norway, No. 7 in Sweden, and was trending on Shazam in South Africa.
At that point, Baldridge had been writing songs in Nashville for 10 years. Nothing he’d created had garnered the attention he hoped.
“Then it was just like, ‘Boom, overnight your music gets noticed. Your name gets noticed. Your song gets noticed,'” he said. “It’s a song that means so much to me as a song about my wife and my father-in-law, and to watch it mean that much to other people. I remember me and my wife dancing and crying in our little condo and just like, ‘Oh my goodness, we can’t believe it that this is happening.'”
Because the music industry hadn’t recovered from the pandemic in 2021, Baldridge started a wildly successful social media campaign offering to play private shows in peoples’ backyards. He and Katie landed from their honeymoon, and he had to leave on a 20-day run. At night, Baldridge sang on lawns around the country. By day, he watched his intensely personal song continue to grow.
Baldridge said Nashville country music labels still weren’t interested in signing him, even though “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” was blowing up.
In 2023, “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” had grown to 500 million views on TikTok and more than 100 million streams. Baldridge played his first post-pandemic show not in a backyard, and fans sang every word to “She’s Somebody’s Daughter.”
Drew Baldridge Hired His Own Radio Promotion Staff
“I’m like, ‘What is going on here? How is this happening?'” he said. “I talked to my bass player, and he’s been with me for 10 years. I’m like, ‘Do you remember people singing along to the song?’ He’s like, ‘No, man. I’ve been waiting 10 years for people to sing along.”
After that show, Baldridge called radio stations and asked them to play the song. They loved it, and radio programmers told him he would miss out on radio airplay if he didn’t bring it to them.
Baldridge decided to hire a radio promotion staff. He asked radio executives who their favorite promotion people were who were out of work. They gave him names, and he started calling them.
“I created my own promo staff and just said, ‘Okay, well, I’m going to do this. I’m going to invest the money that I’m making off streaming,'” he said. “A lot of artists are making money off streaming right now. You can just sit back and collect it, or try to build your business, build your artistry, and invest it back in yourself. That’s something that I really wanted to try to do.”
Baldridge gave himself one year to invest his streaming money in his future. He hired his team and staff, and they sent “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” to country radio on Aug. 23, 2023.
“I remember telling my wife, ‘Look, in 30 years, I don’t want to look back and say, “Why didn’t we try? Why didn’t we just give this a real go? Why didn’t we try this?”‘” he said. “And it took me back to my moment of moving to Nashville when I was 19 and taking that risk of leaving my little town. And I remember saying the same thing, ‘Well, what if I don’t try? I’m just going to live on the farm?'”
Drew Baldridge Told His Wife He Didn’t Want To Live With Regret
Baldridge chose to believe in himself, but the process was slow. By mid-December, the song had yet to reach the Top 50. He remembers staying up late at night, asking himself what he was doing it and why he was doing it. The couple had just had a baby, and Baldridge had to leave Katie home with their son while he traveled to play shows and meet with radio executives. Typically, when an artist goes to greet radio, his radio team travels with him. Baldridge couldn’t afford to fly his radio team in with him and pay for their hotels and flights, so he went alone.
“I would take ’em to lunch and say, ‘Okay, what do we got to do? Where do you need to see this song get to (on the radio chart) before you jump on it?'” he said.
When radio executives refused to play “She’s Somebody’s Daughter,” Baldridge asked if they would test it with the station’s listeners.
“We were just taking real chances of, ‘This could fall flat on our face or it’s our biggest win ever,'” he said. “But on our calls, I’d be like, ‘Well, they ain’t playing it anyways, so if it comes back and it’s a bad test, we’re still in the same boat we were to begin with.'”
But the song didn’t test poorly. In most cases, it tested more favorably than songs the stations were already playing in high rotation.
“That is when we really started seeing it work,” he said. “I was just floored because going into it, the goal was just to get Top 40.”
“She’s Somebody’s Daughter” Is the First Artist-Funded Top 5 Song at Country Radio
“She’s Somebody’s Daughter” was Baldridge’s first Top 40 song. Three or four weeks later, it was his first Top 30 song. Then it moved through the 20s just as fast.
“It just went from 40 to 19 in two-and-a-half months,” Baldridge said. “I was just like, ‘What is going on?’ I’m just all smiles because it’s working. I just can’t believe that it’s working and that it’s everything I dreamed of and more. I knew the song was a hit.”
This week, Baldridge has his first Top 5 hit, and he’s thinking about how to celebrate his first No. 1 song. He’s considering a backyard party in a nod to where “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” first got traction.
“The coolest thing is to know that if you have a record deal and it doesn’t work out or you send one single and you feel like you’re forgotten about,” he said, “just know it can still happen with the right song, with the right time.”
Photo courtesy of Drew Baldridge
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