Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” a twangy heartbreak ballad, is making Hot 100 history. The unassuming song doesn’t have much to say about America’s culture wars, but its popularity does.
“Choosin’ Texas” has spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the record for most weeks atop the chart among non-holiday songs attributed solely to women. The previous record holders were Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together,” both 14-week runs.
On the face of it, the hit songs have little in common.
Houston's and Carey's hits feature explosive vocal performances. “Choosin’ Texas” is comparatively subdued. Langley’s voice is calm, even conversational, as she describes watching her lover leave her for another.
She takes the loss in stride, admitting to the listener, “There’s nothin’ I can do.”
“Choosin’ Texas” is a perfectly agreeable country song, but it’s not obvious why it became a record-breaking hit. After all, “I like everything but country music” remains a fairly common sentiment.
Country's moment is thanks to Wallen, Moroney, Musgraves
Langley’s success may be downstream of country music’s own. Country is in the midst of a "commercial boom,” according to Billboard, thanks to acts like Morgan Wallen, Megan Moroney and Kacey Musgraves. Mainstream pop and hip-hop artists like Beyoncé and Post Malone have attempted country crossover projects of their own.
What explains country's ascendancy?
Americans – and non-Americans, judging by rising European demand for country music – are hungry for Americana. Americana is American culture distilled to its most iconic symbols: apple pie, baseball, white picket fences and small towns. No genre carries these symbols better than country.
Outlaw country artist David Allan Coe famously poked fun at country music stereotypes in “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” which claims to include a verse of the “perfect country & western song.” That verse references drunkenness, the singer’s mother, prison, rain, a pickup and a train.
“Choosin’ Texas” is equally laden with country motifs: the Texas two-step, Hank Williams, the blues, Jack Daniel’s, a lonely highway and Abilene. And of course, Langley’s accent immediately identifies her with the American South.
Langley, unlike Coe, is sincere in her embrace of classic country-western imagery. That sincerity may be what listeners are craving after years of hand-wringing over the perceived ills of American culture. Think of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America,” whose lyrics and video suggest America is defined by mass shootings and racial prejudice. The song was hailed by critics, topped the domestic and international charts, and won four Grammy Awards in 2019.
Then there’s the celebrity habit of ham-fisted activism. Consider the latest Grammy winners who used their speeches to lambast the Trump administration’s immigration policies, or Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” which includes the line: “Shade never made anybody less gay.” Or Swift's “The Man,” in which Swift, a multibillionaire and one of the highest-earning musicians in history, asserts she’d receive more favorable treatment from the public if she were a man.
“Choosin’ Texas” doesn’t cajole listeners into voting red or blue, and Langley has wisely refrained from wading into the culture war discourse around her image.
Put simply, “Choosin’ Texas” is easy, all-American listening.
Langley was wise to name-check Texas
Recall the feel-good stories of World Cup tourists falling in love with America. As cities and countries look increasingly homogenized (the skyscrapers in Atlanta and Austin are stylistically interchangeable, you can order the same venti Frappuccino in Shanghai or Istanbul or Jakarta), the public’s appetite for cultural specificity grows stronger.
Small differences, like the size of a grocery store, start to feel outsized. The cultural exports with the broadest appeal may be the ones most clearly rooted in a specific region. Fittingly, Latin music has also seen streaming growth over the past 18 months.
This appetite for specificity may explain the international popularity of “Choosin’ Texas.” The song peaked at No. 1 in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, No. 3 in Ireland, and No. 6 in Great Britain.
Langley herself is from Alabama but was wise to name-check Texas in her song’s title. Texas is a brand unto itself, globally associated with the Wild West, cowboys, cattle and barbecue.
Country music’s mainstream appeal resides in its storytelling. Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” tells a simple narrative about heartbreak. As does “I Will Always Love You,” which was written and originally recorded by country artist Dolly Parton. And though she’s ventured far from her roots, Swift began her career as a country music artist in Nashville.
If “Choosin’ Texas” is the song of the summer, country music may be remembered as the genre of the 2020s.
Natalie Sandoval graduated from Columbia University in 2024 with a degree in English. She is a USA TODAY Opinion fellow through the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' is making history for a reason | Opinion
