She’s having a huge moment right now, and it’s well-deserved. Ella Langley is gearing up to release her highly-anticipated sophomore album Dandelion, which will be out in less than a month on April 10th. And last night, she won the Best New Country Artist award at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards, and before the show, she spoke with Billboard about her hit single “Choosin’ Texas.” She recently broke the record for longest-running #1 hit on Hot 100 by a female country singer after the song spent its fourth non-concurrent week in first place on that chart, surpassing Taylor Swift, who spent three weeks at #1 back in 2012 for her pop hit, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Of course, Ella wrote the song with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor, and it’s become an absolute juggernaut and huge mainstream crossover hit. Ella says it’s all been “surreal,” explaining that she owes so much of it to her fans who have changed her career: “It feels surreal. I think this has been the biggest moment for me where I’ve seen how fans can change your career. You know, for so long, you’re like, alright, one song at a time, one record at a time. But with this one song, and they’ve done it continuously for me, but really with ‘Choosin’ Texas,’ man, have they taken a hold of it. And it’s so cool, it’s cool to see the ownership they take in it, and the different versions they do, its’ just wild.” When asked what about this song specifically has reached so many people well beyond country music fans, Ella explained that she really doesn’t know exactly, and it’s something she’s talked about with the other co-writers: “I don’t know, I don’t know. I really don’t. We all talk about it, all of us that wrote it, we talk about that. We love this song. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a very honest point of view, but I hear a lot of songs all the time, so I don’t know. I tried to add some groove into this record, I tried to add big, singing chorus and big melodic guitar licks that you can remember, and I don’t know if it feels nostalgic or just sounds like something I hadn’t heard before. I don’t know.” Of course, some of the first people that texted her were Miranda, who executive produced Dandelion, and Lainey Wilson: “My friend Miranda Lambert is on the whole record, she executive produced it, so she reached out. Lainey Wilson who’s here tonight, and a lot of people have. It’s been really cool to see the support.” It’s a heck of a girl group to be in, and Ella joked that no one should mess with them: “Don’t mess with us, you know, I love that.” Amen to that… It sounds like Ella is also going to be writing with some new people out in LA while she’s there this week too, which is super interesting and it sounds like she’s certainly taking advantage of all the new opportunities coming her way with all of this success, as she should: “I mean, there’s so many people, not just country. My favorite thing is to get in the room with people and just see how their brain works, see how they write a song. I’m doing some writes out here in LA for the first time this week, and it’s cool. I’ve always wanted to do that, so we’re having some fun with some different people this week.” I would love to know who she’s working with, and obviously the focus is on all of the new music she has coming very soon, but I will be very interested to see if anything comes of these writes and what it might sound like at some point… stay tuned. The full interview is below. Turn it up… “Choosin’ Texas” The post Ella Langley Says She Doesn’t Know Why “Choosin’ Texas” Has Resonated With So Many People: “It Feels Surreal” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.