A special birthday memory for Walker Hayes' 9-year-old child Loxley — nickname Lolly — inspired a father-daugher duet that could become the family's next viral hit.
An Instagram video Hayes captioned as "Lolly's new favorite song" and "true story time" shows the pair picking and singing together, with Hayes on acoustic guitar and Lolly on mandolin.
"Two Taylor Swift concert ticket stubs/ Cost me more than my mortgage does/ And that was before t-shirts, Cokes and popcorn," begins the song, which is about the time Hayes took Lolly to see Taylor Swift on the youngster's birthday.
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Hayes goes on to sing about "watching [Lolly] watch her hero/ Singing every single word to every song"— the events before his date that night took a nap.
"Who am I that I get to hold a real life princess/ While she sleeps through her way-too-expensive birthday gift?/ I just hope that she grows up and always knows that/ Me, her mom and Jesus love her even more than she loves Taylor Swift," the lyrics continue.
During the clip, Hayes complements Lolly's impressive mandolin-strumming skills.
Hayes' six kids — daughters Lela, Everly and Loxley and sons Chapel, Baylor and Beckett — have had an impact on his music beyond his lyrics. Lolly has taken the stage with her dad at Red Rocks, where they sang the sentimental ballad "If Father Time Had a Daughter."
Famously, Lolly's older sister Lela's dance moves played a role in the viral spread of Hayes' breakthrough hit "Fancy Like." In 2021, Lela introduced her dad to the video hosting app TikTok, and together they shared a dance Lela choreographed to "Fancy Like." Pretty soon, celebrities from Amy Adams to Shaquille O'Neal were taking part in the "Fancy Like" trend.
