Ella Langley didn’t think she’d release her hit song, let alone win a CMA Award

Ella Langley‘s still pinching herself over her first-ever CMA Award win.

The country newcomer and Riley Green took home the Musical Event of the Year trophy for “You Look Like You Love Me” at this year’s awards show and even performed it onstage — a milestone moment of firsts for both artists.

“I didn’t think [‘You Look Like You Love Me’] was ever going to come out in the first place. It was just a song in my audio recordings for almost a year after we wrote it,” Ella shares in an interview. “A girl named Mya Hansen [at Sony Music Publishing] believed in it enough to slip it in every Dropbox link picking for the album, and everyone loved it.”

So how did the idea of dueting with Riley come about?

“Riley asked us on tour. And when I was listening to the cut, I was thinking, ‘Dang, how cool would it be if we turned it into a duet and kind of gave the guy side of a woman walking up to him in the bar in the first place?'” she recalls of her little eureka moment.

“You Look Like You Love Me” is currently in the top three and ascending the country charts.

If you missed their CMA Awards performance, you can watch it now on YouTube.