Ella Langley breaks Mariah Carey's long-standing Billboard record
27-year-old country star Ella Langley's song "Choosin' Texas" has spent 23 weeks atop the US Billboard chart, becoming the longest-running number-one single in the chart's history and surpassing Mariah Carey's record.
Country singer Ella Langley has set a new chart history record with her song "Choosin' Texas," which has now spent 23 weeks at number one on the US Billboard chart — the longest run at the top by any single ever. With this, Langley has overtaken the previous record held by Mariah Carey's Christmas classic "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
How the song came together
"Choosin' Texas" was written in 2024 at a songwriters' camp, inspired by a story country star Miranda Lambert told about a kangaroo she once owned. Langley recalled Lambert describing how police once pulled over her car, which had a kangaroo in the passenger seat and a dog in the back. The officer was reportedly so stunned by what he saw that he didn't even write Lambert a ticket. Langley joked that, given the chaos in the car, the officer probably figured its driver simply had to be from Texas. That conversation inspired the song's line about a woman who can immediately be recognized as a Texan.
The song tells the story of a woman who senses her partner is about to leave her for someone else. Langley told Billboard she knew right away the track had to be the lead single from her second album, "Dandelion," though she never imagined it would achieve this level of success.
International success
The hit has also performed strongly outside the US — in early September it reached number one on the UK singles chart, replacing Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's collaboration "Rein Me In." The song's success also helped the 27-year-old singer sweep the Academy of Country Music Awards, where she won in all seven categories in which she was nominated.
