TikToker sends dad’s unreleased song viral, 43 years later
A teenage TikTocker has sent his dad’s song viral, 43 years after it was first recorded.
On January 4, Zach Smith played an old track he found in his car, not knowing it was written and recorded by his father 43 years earlier.
Smith, who is also a musician, shared it on TikTok with his followers a day later. “There’s a horn section! Just wait…It’s so good!” he shouted in a video he posted on January 5. “And he never released it! I’m so mad at him.”
Soon after, the track, called ‘Surrender To Me’ had been played thousands of times and was lauded by the likes of Meghan Trainor and Herman Li.
Since being shared on TikTok, it’s now received three million plays and close to 10,000 pre-saves.
The song has now also received an official release under the name FireCityFunk.
You can listen to the song below:
@zach.montana Guys PLEASE blow this up to convince my dad to release this song?#dadsoftiktok
♬ original sound – Zach?
Speaking to The Guardian Smith said: “I woke up to texts from people I never get texts from – like my hairstylist – saying, ‘Yo, this is crazy!’”
His father, William “Curly” Smith, has recorded, toured and been a session player with artists including Wille Nelson and Berlinda Carlisle.
He added: “It’s just something that’s been sitting on the shelf for 43 years,” Curly said, saying his son “just discovered it in the car, did a TikTok thing on it, and the rest is history.”
His son continued: “I was astonished, like everyone else on TikTok, that [the song] didn’t have the recognition I thought it deserved.”
The song is now being put in front of Guardian’s Of The Galaxy director James Gunn after fans of the song online commented how “perfect” it would be for the film franchise’s soundtrack.
“We’re huge Marvel fans,” Zach told The Guardian. “We’ve seen all the MCU movies. It’s something we’ve bonded over as father and son, so it’s really exciting to think the song could end up in one of the films.”
Last month, Gunn confirmed that the upcoming third film will be the last time that the current roster of heroes will appear on screen together.
Introduced in 2014, the Guardians Of The Galaxy are Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax The Destroyer (Dave Bautista) Groot (Vin Diesel) Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana). By the end of Avengers Endgame, the team also included Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff).
However in a new interview, Gunn confirmed “This is the end for us, the last time people will see this team of Guardians.”
“It’s big; it’s so, so big and dark, and different from what people might be expecting it to be,” he continued, speaking on Deadline’s Hero Nation podcast.
Ahead of the release of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3 though, the team will appear in a Holiday Special. Posting on Twitter, Gunn wrote: “In my incredibly subjective & admittedly often odd opinion, we’ll be introducing one of the greatest MCU characters of all time.”