The sweet inspiration behind the hit song ‘Fancy Like’
Nicea DeGering
On Good Things Utah this morning – There is a sweet story behind one of the biggest country music hits. A few months ago, Walker Hayes was a country singer who’d had a couple of hits. But his ode to date nights at Applebee’s, “Fancy Like,” turned him into a TikTok celebrity and then a bonafide pop star. “The idea really spawned from a conversation … about the misconception that all celebrities live a very lavish lifestyle,” Hayes told ABC Audio. “I think most people just think that if you’re an artist, if you’re a performer, if you’re a songwriter and you’re paying the bills, you live in a mansion and you always eat at Ruth’s Chris and you always wear expensive shoes. And that’s not necessarily true.” “I just basically wrote the song to say, ‘Hey, I’m pretty simple guy, ’bout as fancy as it gets for me is Applebee’s on a date night,'” said Hayes, a father of six. “You know, like, just me talking guy to guy, ‘How fancy do you get?’ ‘Well, hey, we fancy like Applebee’s!'”
Plus, Joaquin Phoenix isn’t closing the book on Arthur Fleck just yet. The actor is open to the idea of a sequel to Joker, the 2019 Todd Phillips film in which he played a young version of the infamous DC villain. Phoenix, who earned an Oscar for his portrayal of Arthur in Joker, recently told The Playlist that he sees potential for a follow-up film. “I mean, I dunno. From when we were shooting, we started to — you know, uhh, this is an interesting guy,” Phoenix said, speaking of his Joker character. “There are some things we could do with this guy and could explore further. But as to whether we actually will? I don’t know.” Rumors of a second Joker film have been swirling for a while now, dating back to 2019, when the film was first released. In November of that year, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a sequel was “on the way” after the original film brought in over $1 billion.
And maybe couples who use the potty together stay together, right? Apparently, that’s the deal with Meghan Trainor and husband Daryl Sabara. During Friday’s episode of the Why Won’t You Date Me? podcast, Meghan shared that she and Daryl decided to install side-by-side toilets in the bathroom after welcoming their son, Riley, in February! “We just got a new house and we did construction. Nobody knows this, but in our bathroom, there was one toilet,” Meghan said to Why Won’t You Date Me? host Nicole Byer. “And a lot of times in the middle of the night when we’re with the baby, we gotta pee at the same time. So I was like, ‘Can we please have two toilets next to each other?'”
Finally, over the past couple of months, Allison, a wife and mother of a toddler and teenager in Chicago, says she’s been spending about $50 more each week on groceries to feed her family — and that’s at a discount supermarket chain, Aldi’s. “I used to spend $70 a week, but all of sudden this summer, I noticed that I couldn’t leave the store without spending at least $120,” said Allison, who works in education. Like millions of Americans whose income has not kept pace with inflation — up 5.3 percent in August compared with a year ago — Allison and her family are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living and giving up some things just to make ends meet. We dive into these Hot Topics and more, hope you join us for a Thursday edition of GTU.