‘Iowa Gurls’ so hot it melts Popsicles

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — What started as a one-shot song parody has spun into a viral video garnering 79,000 hits in its first week.

The creative forces at a Cedar Rapids radio station gave pop siren Katy Perry’s candylicious “California Gurls” a cornfield spin with their own “Iowa Gurls” earlier this month.

“We thought we’d do an ‘Iowa Gurls’ song and play it once on the radio,” says Chris Jackson, 27, of Cedar Rapids, KZIA’s evening on-air personality. “Everyone loved it so much, they started requesting it, and we started playing it (in rotation) like a real song. Then listeners said we should make a music video.”

They did. It debuted July 15.

Perry’s song extols the beauty and heat radiating from the Golden State, where girls traipse around a Candyland paradise, sporting “sun-kissed skin so hot it will melt your Popsicle.”

KZIA’s version sings the praises of “Iowa, the land of farmers’ daughters” with “farmer tans so hot they’ll pop your popcorn.” Cast and crew, including the Cedar Rapids Rollergirls, shot the video around eastern Iowa.

Never meant to be a serious discourse on the Hawkeye State, the project grew “out of good fun,” said Jackson, who served as editor and director for the music video, and takes his star turn as the Snoop Dogg-style rapper near the end.

KZIA producer Clare Duffy, 24, of Cedar Rapids, makes her music video debut singing the lead vocals.

“By no means am I a singer,” Duffy said. “Auto-Tune gave me more confidence. Hearing myself in the headphones, I thought I sounded pretty good, so that gave me a little more confidence.”

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