Remember last week when we told you Ella Langley was one week away from something enormous?
She got there.
“Choosin’ Texas” has officially spent its 19th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying the record for the longest-running non-holiday No. 1 song in the chart’s nearly 70-year history.
Read that again.
Not the longest-running country song.
Not the longest-running song by a female country artist.
Any non-holiday song.
The only other songs to spend 19 weeks at No. 1 are Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, and Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
One more week would give Ella the record all by herself.
And she isn’t exactly limping toward the finish line.
During the latest tracking week, “Choosin’ Texas” generated 24.3 million U.S. streams, 55.7 million radio audience impressions and another 7,000 sales. The song also leads Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart for a 19th week and has now spent an extraordinary 37 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs.
The timing is pretty perfect.
Ella just returned to Texas—the state that inspired the song—for three sold-out shows. Last week she was also celebrated at ACM Honors after being named Artist-Songwriter of the Year.
And “Choosin’ Texas” isn’t some carefully manufactured crossover experiment.
It’s a heartbreak song built around fiddle, steel guitar and a woman realizing the guy she’s interested in is probably going back to Texas—and somebody else.
It was co-written by Ella, Luke Dick, Joybeth Taylor and Miranda Lambert.
Somehow that very country idea has become one of the biggest pop hits America has ever produced.
Ella is also proving this isn’t a one-song fluke.
“I Can’t Love You Anymore,” her collaboration with Morgan Wallen, is currently No. 6 on the Hot 100, while “Be Her” sits at No. 10 after previously climbing as high as No. 2.
That gives her three songs in America’s Top 10 simultaneously.
But all eyes will be on one number next week.
Twenty.
If “Choosin’ Texas” can stay at No. 1 for one more week, Ella Langley will stand alone with the longest-running non-holiday No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 history.
A few years ago, most of America had never heard her name.
Now she’s one week away from a record nobody has ever reached.
