Ella Langley is almost speechless. The Alabama native spoke out as “Choosin’ Texas” just set a new record by staying at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 23 weeks.
“I’m genuinely trying to find the words to help explain what’s going on in my brain today. … I don’t know,” Langley begins. “Thank you so much. Thank you for loving this song, for listening to it. I feel like I just don’t even know what to say at this point. I’m running out of hyperboles to describe how I feel, so I will just let my dog in the background show you his excitement. Just thank you. Thank you so much.
“It’s changing my life,” she continues. “It’s changing lives of the writers of this song. It’s changing lives of my family, and it is truly growing an atmosphere for something I’m going to be able to do the rest of my life. Today, it doesn’t feel like a real thing. It feels fake, and somebody’s gonna come and be like, ‘Ahh, we’re kidding the whole time. Just kidding.'”
The Story Behind “Choosin’ Texas” by Ella Langley
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“Choosin’ Texas” was written by Langley, along with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor. It is part of Dandelion, her latest album.
“We were on one of these things called a writer’s retreat, where you take a couple of your favorite people and you just sit down for however many days and write songs,” Langley recalls (via Country Rebel). “And hopefully some of them are good.”
Langley goes on to reveal the odd conversation Langley and Lambert had, which inspired them to write “Choosin’ Texas.”
“She told me she had a pet kangaroo, and she was doing something,” Langley recalls. “She was driving down a dirt road, and the kangaroo was in the back seat, and the dog was in the front seat. There was a lot going on. Then she got pulled over with a kangaroo in the passenger seat. And I was like, ‘This story’s as good as I thought it would be.’ She said the lady cop pulled her over, and she’s like, ‘Of course I have Texas plates on the back of my car.’”
“I was walking to the bathroom, and I started to go, ‘She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way he’s two-steppin’ around the room,’” she continues. “And Miranda was walking behind me to the bathroom, a separate one, and she was like, ‘Wait a minute! The [girl] he went with, she’s from Texas, I can tell.’ The girl he went with, you know? And from there, I think the song fell out in about 30 minutes, and it’s one of my favorite ones we got off the retreat that weekend.”
Langley is nominated for nine CMA Awards, including the night’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year. She is followed by Lambert, who has eight nods.
Photo Credit: CMA / John Russell