Surfboard

Album: single release only (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This single was inspired by Cody's love for surfing, and by his girlfriend, model Gigi Hadid, who is the daughter of TV personality Yolanda Foster.
  • Cody sings, "she on my surfboard, surfboard, gonna ride it- surfboard," in a similar fashion to Beyoncé's references to surfboards on her "Drunk In Love" single. Cody told MTV News that it was just coincidence that both he and Queen B croon lines about the long narrow board used to ride over waves. The Aussie singer added that he actually recorded the track before Beyoncé's single dropped. "Everyone was like, 'Beyonce did that' and I had the idea for a while. And then Beyonce's came out and I absolutely love that song, but when I heard it I didn't know if it was going to affect my idea at all," Cody said. "And at the end of the day I thought about it so much and I thought 'Hey it's a part of pop culture right now,' if I was going to release this song it would probably be the best time to do it, so I decided why not just go along with it now."
  • The song's music clip finds Cody creating his own surfboard from scratch. "I co-directed that video actually," he told MTV News. "I had a vision for the video to stay true to my Australian boy roots. I've been surfing my whole life just growing up in that culture."

    We also see Cody on the beach and splashing in the water with his girlfriend, Gigi Hadid. "Working with my girl makes it so much more comfortable. I've never had a girlfriend in a music video before..." Cody said. "I thought, might as well have the girl in that inspired the song, and it just made the chemistry so natural. Some scenes where they didn't end up putting in the video was us kissing or whatever, but we ended up shooting those scenes as options, and they ended up yelling 'cut,' and we didn't stop."

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