Country singer Ella Langley’s hit “Choosin’ Texas” has become the longest-running No. 1 song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, logging its 23rd week atop the chart this week and surpassing Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Langley marked the milestone Tuesday night with an emotional video posted to Instagram. “I’m genuinely trying to find the words to explain what’s going on in my brain today,” she said. “Thank you so much. Thank you for loving this song, for listening to it. I feel likeā¦ I just don’t even know what to say at this point.”
She added that the song’s success was reshaping her life and the lives of those around her. “It’s changing my life. It’s changing the lives of the writers of this song. It’s changing the lives of my family and it is truly growing an atmosphere for something I’m gonna be able to do the rest of my life,” Langley said. “Today doesn’t feel like a real thing. It feels fake and somebody’s going to come in and be like ‘haha we’re kidding the whole time just kidding.'”
“Choosin’ Texas” first entered the Hot 100 in November 2025, gave Langley her first top 10 hit in January, and reached No. 1 for the first time in February. It has also spent 41 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
A kangaroo story sparked the song
In a resurfaced interview with Billboard from March, when the song was still climbing the charts, Langley described how the track came together during her first songwriting retreat with country star Miranda Lambert.
“So, I was on a writer’s retreat with Miranda,” Langley said. “This is our first time that we had written together and obviously we were there with two others.” Billboard credits Langley, Lambert, Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor as co-writers of the song.
Langley said the idea began after she asked Lambert about a pet kangaroo she’d had as a child. Lambert told the group a story about once being pulled over with the kangaroo in the passenger seat and a dog in the back. “She said she got pulled over and the kangaroo ended up getting her out of a ticket, but she’s like, ‘Of course, I had Texas plates on, too,'” Langley recalled.
“And I went, ‘Well, she’s from Texas, I can tell,'” Langley said. “And just from that phrase, it kind of all hit us.” She said the melody came together quickly after that. “And 45 minutes later, we had that song written,” Langley said. “And it was just, it was such a cool experience.”
Lambert is also executive producing Langley’s next record. “There’s not a rulebook to this job,” Langley said. “So to be able to have someone like her to ask questions and think, you know, is it, should I be doing this? She’s like, ‘Hell yeah, you should be doing this.'”
Langley said even Lambert was taken aback by the song’s rise. “My team’s calling me every day freaking out about this song,” Langley recalled Lambert telling her. At the time of the March interview, the song had only reached No. 5 on the Hot 100. “How crazy is that?” Langley said. “And for me, like, what, me? You mean me?”
Six months later, the song stands alone atop Billboard history. Langley has continued touring through the milestone, recently performing in Oxford, Mississippi; Athens, Georgia; and Jacksonville, Florida, sharing tour photos on Instagram captioned “Oxford, Athens & Jacksonville ā¤ļø.”
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