Story Behind the Song: Russell Dickerson, ‘Yours’
Russell Dickerson's debut single, "Yours" -- which is the title track of his debut EP, released in 2016 -- was written long before he found success as a singer-songwriter. Inspired by his relationship with and love for his wife Kailey, "Yours" is, as Dickerson tells The Boot below, an honest glimpse into how he really feels about his adoring spouse. And because Kailey is a videographer, the two shot the song's accompanying music video for $6 -- the cost of gas.
I wrote it with two great friends of mine from Belmont College. It wasn’t like this Music Row thing; it was like, “Hey, you guys are awesome. We should write songs.”
“Yours” was the second song we ever wrote together, so we thought, “Um, I think we’ve got something here.” And I think because we had relationships already -- we had friendships, we were already established -- that was the second song.
We just wanted to write a true, honest love song. I had the idea, called “Yours": I was this before, but now I’m yours. [My co-writers have] seen my relationship [with my wife] from Day 1, so I think that’s why it was so cool and so real and so, just, raw, and it just connects. It’s like, “Hey, I sucked before I met you. I was an a-hole, but you make me a better man.”
We were already married [when I wrote it]. I wish I had it to sing at our wedding. I get so many wedding invites that I wish we could have sung it at mine.
[For the music video], I had my SUV, the hatch opened in the back, and Kailey was sitting in there with the tripod and the camera. The car was driving, and I was walking behind the car. We were just shooting test footage ... I [had envisioned] a guy walking down the road and singing to the camera. But then this giant storm rolled in.
We weren’t like, “Oh, weather forecast is storm. Let’s go chase.” I mean, literally, we got out there, and we thought, “That’s a really dark cloud,” and it was moving perfectly in the background, and then the lightning flashed right behind my head. It gives me chills just talking about it.
All of it is real. And then, we got five or six takes of pre-storm, and then it just unloaded and we just kept going, kept going, kept going. I think we were there an hour and a half -- because on the footage, it had a time stamp, and I think it was from about 10 or 10:30 to noon.
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