Ella Langley & Riley Green Share Story Behind Viral Collaboration

Ella Langley and Riley Green stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to share how their viral song has changed their lives!

Five years ago, Langley moved to Nashville to chase her music dreams. She knew music was always going to be her end goal, so after being a student at Auburn University for two years, she dropped out and pursued music full time. When “You Look Like You Love Me” started to go viral, her career started to take off. But the song was never supposed to see the light of day though. She wrote it with Aaron Raitiere as a joke, but the label ended up liking it and wanted her to release it. She pushed back on that idea for a long time but finally gave it when she noticed the fans reactions to it after she posted a short clip of the song on TikTok. Then Riley Green asked her to join him on tour, and she figured since they are from the same area and grew up on the same kind of music, that he should be on the song. She first met him on his tour bus and the first thing she said to him was, “Riley, do you like making money?” Her “pickup line” to him caught his attention and he agreed to be on the song. She asked him to write the second verse in the way he would respond if a woman walked up to the bar and said that to him. Neither of them had any idea the song would become so big. For Green, it’s his first taste of one of his songs going viral, and he admitted it’s wild to see because he hardly knows how to use TikTok.

The old-school talking verses were a risk for Langley because it’s not a popular thing to do and traditional country is just starting to come back. But she grew up on it and is doing what she likes to do and not what other people think she should. She went back and forth with the label about singing or talking in the verses and she told them she was never going to put out a version where she was singing the verses. She told them that she sings on every other song, so why can’t she just have one that she doesn’t and plus it made it stand out more too. Also, the story of a girl walking up to a man in a bar is not a traditional theme in country. Langley just started her first headline tour and seeing people sing back every word of the song she said is wild watching your dreams come true. Every time the two perform the song, the crowd gets louder every time they sing it.

While in studio, Langley and Green performed “You Look Like You Love Me.”

Langley’s debut album Hungover is out now.