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Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" has spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying the longest run ever achieved by a non-holiday single by a woman. Langley’s time on the charts is now equal to Whitney Houston's run with "I Will Always Love You," which led for 14 weeks across 1992 and 1993, and Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together," which did the same in 2005. Only one song by a woman has run longer, and it is Carey's all-time record for "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which has accumulated 22 weeks at No. 1.
"Choosin' Texas" first ascended to the top of Hot 100 in February, and the track follows the usual shape of a pop-country ballad with a simple but rich melody, a weeping steel pedal guitar, and lyrics dedicated to the one that got away. Langley co-wrote the piece with fellow country songwriters Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, and Joybeth Taylor.
Langley's feat comes at a time when country music is dominating the charts. Half of the songs on the Hot 100's current top 10 (for the week of July 21) are country songs, including Taylor Swift's latest single "I Knew It, I Knew You," made for the forthcoming Toy Story 5, and "Boston" by newcomer Stella Lefty, which entered the top 10 this week. The rest of the top 40 is populated by familiar faces: song from 2025 by Olivia Dean, Zara Larsson, PinkPantheress, and tracks from recent releases by Future, Drake, Harry Styles, and Olivia Rodrigo.
In 2025, writer David Renshaw observed that songs on the Billboard Hot 100 were increasingly spending longer time on the charts than before. "The average number of weeks spent on Hot 100 by songs in the top 20 is currently 30.35 weeks, while five years ago, that number was just 18.75 weeks," he wrote for The FADER. The change is due to a rise in curated playlists and radio being harder to infiltrate.
Langley is on the road through October on the sold-out Dandelion Tour, with upcoming dates in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Hampshire.
