At the end of June, a 90-second TikTok video of three women singing how they felt about this turbulent year went mega viral.
The catchy (and extremely relatable) song begins:
December 31st, I grabbed a beer / Threw it up, said, "2020 is my year, bitches" / And I honestly thought that that was true / Until I gave this motherfucker like a month or two / This is getting kind of ridiculous at this point.
The tune is from a trio of 22-year-olds — Sam Backoff, Savana Santos, and Sami Bearden — from Quincy, Illinois, who have been in a band together called Avenue Beat since they were 14 years old.
The group, who opened for Mason Ramsey last year, told BuzzFeed News that when they performed the song for their TikTok video, they had written nothing more than 90 seconds — they only decided to complete it when it went viral.
"We were just having a week and everything that could go wrong was going wrong," said Santos, "and I remember sitting on my couch just being like, You know what? I need to write a song about this."
The group said they put it on TikTok because they assumed no one would let them release the song as it has tons of swear words. "It'll live on TikTok," said Bearden.
But the next morning the song went viral with 4.5 million views — at which point TikTok temporarily took it down for review. (The group appealed and it was later reinstated.)
As the song went viral, they decided they had to put out a second verse. Writing the whole song took them about an hour and a half, they said.
"When it started blowing up," said Santos, "everyone started hitting us up like, 'You have to finish this today!' and we were screaming."
"We quickly tried to finish it as fast as we could."
Not only did the TikTok go viral on its native app, but a Twitter user downloaded the video and shared it there, where it drew another 3 million views.
The video struck a chord with people not just because of the lyrics but also because of the images that are behind them in the TikTok. There are photos highlighting the Australian fires, police brutality incidents in the US, the postponed Tokyo Olympics, President Trump, and more.
People have called the song a bop and many are finding the bleak lyrics and footage extremely relatable amid this dire year.
This is lowkey a bop👀
Sometimes it’s hard to call the song of the year half way through and sometimes it’s not @TheAvenueBeat
@Wrapfiqah_ me bopping along while scared of what the second half of 2020 has in store for us
Some have even been getting emotional about the song — or maybe just 2020 itself.
@Wrapfiqah_ Whole time...but like also...weeping
@Wrapfiqah_ Me RN
The line "Yo, my cat died and a global pandemic took over my life" is about Bearden's cat named Gumbo, whom she adopted from a shelter.
"I've had a lot of people DM me saying, like, 'I've just lost my pet and I'm so mad about it and this song helped me blow off a little steam,'" said Bearden. "And I was like, 'Solidarity,' because losing a pet is not it. It's not fun."
The group said they're glad their little joke turned into something positive for so many people during what has been a very rough year for most.
"We’re so so thankful we get to put this out," Backoff said. "Without the people liking it and blowing it up, never in a million years would we be able to convince our team to release it.""