Ella Langley has a lot of reasons to be excited. As the country star gears up for the release of her sophomore album, Dandelion, she took some time to celebrate landing two No. 1 songs with “Choosin’ Texas” and “Weren’t for the Wind.”
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Ahead of a jam-packed party at Nashville’s BMI offices, Langley spoke to the press about her whirlwind year and next chapter.
The star of the bash was “Choosin’ Texas,” a song that’s consistently broken records since its release. The track has sat atop the Hot Country Songs chart for 16 weeks, led the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, and notched nearly half a billion streams worldwide.
“We loved the song when we wrote it. It was the song that, I think, me and Miranda [Lambert] clicked on, where it was like, ‘All right, we’re gonna work together in a bigger way,’” Langley said. “We’ve all talked about this and we love that song, but did we think it could do something like this? How do you predict that?”
The song’s success is hard for Langley to wrap her head around.
“When I’m writing music, I really writing it for me in the moment. I write mostly from life experience. I kind of use it as a journal, so people know way too much about my life,” she said. “But when a song does something like this, to me, it does something different in a way where it’s like, ‘Wow, people are grabbing a hold of this in more of a way than you could have hoped when you write a song.’”
“It shows you the power of what a song can do,” Langley continued. “You think, ‘We’re just going in there and just having fun with people we love making music with.’ You don’t realize that that could be the song that changes your life forever. For me, this song just keeps reinforcing that.”
What to Expect from Ella Langley’s Dandelion
With fans’ positive reactions to her latest releases, it’s no surprise that anticipation for Langley’s sophomore album, Dandelion, is sky high.
Langley worked with Miranda Lambert to produce the “groovy, fun” record, which takes inspiration from country music from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. It’s a summertime album, meant to be listened to while driving down country back roads with the windows down.
“The word I keep using for this record is synchronicity,” Langley said. “… I feel Hungover, the first record, is the thing that brought people to the table, but Dandelion is going to be the thing that makes them sit down and eat something.”
“It’s me. It’s exactly who I want to be as an artist right now,” she added. “I feel like I’ve clicked in and locked into the thing that feels most genuinely who I am.”
Knowing that, Langley seems more excited than nervous about getting this album out into the world. That’s especially true given that so many are her dreams have already come to fruition.
“I’ve daydreamed about this job and this career my whole entire life. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s literally, seriously, been the one dream I’ve had,” she said. “… It’s almost overwhelming. And by almost I mean it is. Extremely. It’s watching all of your dreams come true at once.”
Dandelion is due out April 10.
Photo by Adam Kissick/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images
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