‘Choosin’ Texas’ Is The Most Popular Song In America. Do You Know It?

A 20-something pranced over to the stage in new cowboy boots, a paisley bandana, and a pinch-front hat, leaning in to whisper her request. The lead singer nodded and hopped back on the mic to rally hundreds of line dancers, announcing, “Okay, y’all — I don’t know this one, but let’s see what we can do!” Five, six, seven, hey!

The band tripped through the opening bars of a song they clearly hadn’t heard before. It was spring of 2026, six months after Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard Top 100. Not every country rocker in downtown Nashville had “Just when I thought I got him to fall in love with Tennessee” echoing in their heads. 

I had heard bits and pieces, but couldn’t tell whether Ella represented Tennessee or Texas in the story, or who was crushing on whom. Which state was the bad one? I also mixed up Ella Langley with Lainey Wilson despite the obvious difference in hair extensions, creating a Lainey Langley imaginary friend.  

Fast forward to September when Ella’s heartbreak ballad about a random chick from the Lone Star State beat Mariah Carey’s record-breaking chart topper “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by sitting at No. 1 for 24 weeks and counting. After previously outpacing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” “Choosin’ Texas” became Billboard’s longest-running No. 1 hit in Hot 100 history. 

I’m sure that Nashville cover band finally got the memo, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s choosin’ Texas. There are plenty of people who claim they’ve never even heard of it. Cue Mariah Carey’s “I don’t know her” moment, when she pretended not to know Jennifer Lopez. (Sure, Jan.) 

Someone posted to Reddit, “I’ve never heard of the song. I assume it’s one of those TikTok things?” It wasn’t a one-off. 

“I live in Louisiana, a deeeep red state,” another music fan wrote. “I’ve literally never heard this song. But I expressed this to my husband tonight and he immediately groaned and said, ‘I’m so sick of hearing that song’ because I guess he hears it at the gym. Idk what my never having heard the song combined with his being sick of it says about society.”

Love it or hate it, after a year of “Choosin’ Texas,” it’s hard to believe anyone’s missed the earworm that brought in over 1.6 billion global streams. Even if you didn’t pony up for tickets to Ella’s Dandelion Tour, the track ate up every TikTok and Instagram feed on its rise to the top. Retail campaigns including American Eagle, Chase Sapphire, and Boot Barn only amplified the sensation that Ella was everywhere.

But if you don’t know the lyrics or the tune, and you couldn’t pick Ella Langley out of a police lineup, you’re not alone. We don’t listen to the same music like we used to.

The Wall Street Journal hailed this past summer’s monoculture “comeback,” citing the moments that at least simulated the feeling that we all experienced an event together. We flocked to theaters to see “The Odyssey,” “Project Hail Mary,” and “Spider-Man.” Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married. The Knicks won the NBA Championship. 

Then there was the World Cup, which brought tourists from around the world to North America just in time for the 250th birthday of the United States. Take a wild guess about what was on the radio, priming patriotism as European soccer fans in rental cars hit the open road: a country crossover about a two-steppin’, whiskey-drinkin’ cowboy and the Smoky Mountains. Sold. 

The track tagged in on country pop’s current victory lap, capitalizing on the familiar lazy vocals of Stevie Nicks’ hit “Dreams” and its soft-rock groove. One Redditor offered, “It’s a very fun song to sing at karaoke, from what I’ve seen, and also has a strong ‘sing this in your car’ vibe that only the most cherished pop country hits have.” University of Southern California professor and musicologist Nate Sloan described the song’s soothing lyrical lines as “Almost like a trance. It’s a little more rock or even kind of soul-inflected.” Whatever its appeal, he’s choosin’ Texas, I can tell.

We had a good mid-year run at collective cultural glue. But long gone are the days when both your kid cousin and your great grandma knew the same Michael Jackson or Beatles song. You might recognize former record-holders on the Billboard Top 100 better than Ella Langley’s — like “Macarena,” “Despacito,” and “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X (and Billy Ray Cyrus). Blah blah something blah, hey Macarena! 

As we separately couch-rot, following our preferred niche genres and feeding an insatiable algorithm that only regurgitates our tastes, some of us could be living in a parallel universe where country music doesn’t exist. There’s also a degree of clout that comes with not being familiar with the most popular song on the planet. It’s cool to establish tastemaker status as someone who doesn’t engage in such banalities as basic twangy bangers that go down like pumpkin spice lattes. God forbid we all sing along to a song about Americana and get outed as liking pickup trucks. Ick.

But cultural common ground has value beyond the song of the summer. Contrasting the obvious cons to hive-mind radical ideology or the growth of tribalism, appreciating something uplifting together means more in a society where we share too much and not enough all at once. We long to be part of something larger, but we still want to be individual. Houston, we have a problem.

AI and algorithms give the vibe of popular consensus as they streamline entertainment to appeal to the masses. But all that shaving off of unique creative quirks flattens the inspirational spark. Everything sounds, looks, moves, and reads the same, with as much personality as dry toast. 

But one shared experience can spark the kind of social connection the robots will never be able to manufacture for humans (fingers crossed). It’s why that group chat about fantasy football picks or the new season of “Real Housewives” makes us feel like we belong with each other, sharing something funny, meaningful, and inescapably human.  

Research shows this is essential to our wellbeing with psychologists confirming, “As social creatures, we often seek connection with others, and sharing our internal states brings us closer to others. Thus, creating a shared reality is fundamentally about establishing commonalities to reduce uncertainty regarding the world and foster connections between individuals.” Maybe it’s time to crank up the country.