It’s one of the most unexpected stories you’re likely to hear today: Ella Langley’s smash hit “Choosin’ Texas” owes its existence to Miranda Lambert’s pet kangaroo.
The two helped author the #1 song during a writers retreat, which turned out to be Ella’s chance to cure her curiosity about something in Miranda’s life.
“We’ve always had a lot of mutual friends. One of them told me over the years that she had a pet kangaroo,” Ella explains. “And as a fellow animal lover, I had so many questions about that. And so I figured I had to wait till we were like friends enough [before I asked her about it].”
“So I got done with the first song and I was like, ‘What can you tell me about that kangaroo?’ And she tells me the whole story. And at the end of the story, she got pulled over with the kangaroo in the passenger seat. [The] kangaroo got her out of a ticket, [it] really did. And she had Texas plates on [her car].”
The end of the kangaroo story was the beginning of Ella’s current hit.
“I was like, ‘Well, he’s probably like, “She’s from Texas, I can tell,”‘” Ella recalls. “And just from literally that right there, the melody kinda just fell out.”
“I went, ‘She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way he’s two-stepping around the room,”” she says as she begins to sing the lyrics. “Just like that. And she’s like, ‘She’s from Texas, like the one he went with!’ And I mean, 30, 45 minutes that song was written.”
Miranda co-produced Ella’s new album, Dandelion, which comes out April 10, and contributes background vocals to “Choosin’ Texas.”
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