“Girl in It,” Ray Fulcher‘s debut single as a Black River Entertainment signee, reflects both the highs and lows of love — often caused by the same person. As he sings in each chorus, “If you’re going out of your mind, I bet there’s a girl in it.“
That’s a hook singer-songwriter Erik Dylan brought into the co-writing session between himself, Fulcher and James McNair, and once Fulcher and McNair heard it, they were off and writing. But, Fulcher recalls, it was a session that almost didn’t happen at all.
Below, Fulcher shares the story behind “Girl in It,” in his own words.
What’s funny about that day and that song is that — I think it was July of [2020]; it was in the middle of the pandemic. We wrote it on Zoom, but it was one of those days on a Friday where I woke up and it’s like, I’d been writing all week … Almost, my mind was like, “I don’t want to write today. These guys are my buddies — they’ll understand if we just punt, move it.” I didn’t really have any ideas.
But I didn’t [cancel the write]. I was like, “I’m gonna show up. Those guys are great writers. I don’t want to miss out on a really great opportunity” …
So, we get in there and Erik’s like, “I got this idea; I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know what it’d be called, but the idea’s like, ‘If you’re going out of your mind, I bet there’s a girl in it.’“
I just, like, came to life, like I’d had five shots of espresso or something. I was like, “Holy crap — dude, that’s amazing.” So then we just talked about how we would get to that hook and what we wanted to say and stuff. And then, it was just one of those writes, which rarely happen, where there was never any time where we were stumped. It just flowed; we wrote that song in, like, an hour and a half.
The song is about, whether you’re falling in love or you’re in love and those magical moments, or you’re in the middle of heartbreak, it’s that one person you can’t get off your mind, no matter what. And that’s where that hook [comes in] … There’s a good going out of your mind and a bad going out of your mind, and the human experience is both of those …
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