Ella Langley's country smash Choosin' Texas has overtaken Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You to become the longest-running number one single in US chart history. Released last October, the bittersweet song details Langley's suspicions that her boyfriend is about to run off with another woman. It topped the US chart for the first time in February, and has now spent 23 weeks at number one., external Choosin' Texas also rose to pole position on the UK singles chart at the start of September, where it replaced Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's Rein Me In.
That song had also spent 23 weeks at number one, making it the UK's longest-running chart-topper. The immovability of both songs has raised questions about stagnation in the charts, and whether streaming services are doing enough to promote new music. Langley's song was written at a writing retreat in 2024, with assistance from country star Miranda Lambert.
Unexpectedly, it started with a discussion about a pet kangaroo Lambert had once owned. "She told me the story about how she got pulled over [by the police] with a kangaroo in the passenger seat and a dog in the back," Langley explained. The officer was so surprised that she didn't issue a ticket.
Langley responded to Lambert, saying the cop must have known she was from Texas, given the chaos unfolding in the car. That prompted the lyric, "She's from Texas, I can tell." Over the next 30 minutes, the writers (who also included Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor) cooked up a story about a woman in Tennessee, who realises her partner's heart still belongs to Texas... and to another girl. First previewed on stage in February 2025, Langley said she instantly knew it would become the first single from her sophomore album, Dandelion.
"We loved that song, but I don't think I could ever have imagined what's happening with it right now," the singer told magazine. "Every day I wake up and it's doing something that I didn't even know was a goal I could have had. It's crazy, it's nuts." Its success helped the 27-year-old, who is actually from Alabama, sweep the Academy of Country Music Awards in May.
She won in all seven categories in which she was nominated, including female artist of the year, artist songwriter of the year, and both single and song of the year, for Choosin' Texas. It is now one of only two songs to surpass 20 weeks at number one on the US charts - with the other being Mariah Carey's perennial Christmas smash All I Want for Christmas Is You. But the records for long-running hits have been tumbling ever since streaming became a mainstream phenomenon.
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