The song that started with a kangaroo story is still sitting at the top of the biggest chart in music.
Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” held No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart dated August 22. That makes 18 weeks at the top. It first got there in February and has kept coming back every time something tried to knock it off.
Billboard shows the song is now just one week away from tying the longest non-holiday run the Hot 100 has ever seen. That mark sits at 19 weeks and belongs to Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”
Eighteen weeks is already rare air. Only a handful of songs have ever stayed this long.
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Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” Is Still No 1 After 18 Weeks
“Choosin’ Texas” has made several separate trips to No. 1 since February. Big releases have pushed it down more than once. Each time it climbed right back. The latest week puts it alone in fourth place on the all-time list of longest-running No. 1s.
It also holds the record for the longest non-holiday No. 1 by a solo woman with no other artists listed. Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey both stopped at 14 weeks in that category. Langley passed them weeks ago and has kept adding to the total.
On the country charts, the grip is even tighter. The song is in its 36th week at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs. Streaming and sales numbers from the latest tracking week stayed strong enough to keep the all-genre lead without any real fight.
For You
How a Kangaroo Story Helped Ella Langley Write a Billboard Hit
The song was written in about thirty minutes during a writers retreat with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor. Lambert told a story about getting pulled over years earlier with a pet kangaroo in the car and Texas plates on the bumper. Langley answered with the line that became the hook.
“She’s from Texas, I can tell.”
That one line turned into a two-stepping heartbreak song about a man whose heart was always going to leave for Texas. Ten months after its release in October 2025, the same song is still sitting on top of the Hot 100.
The room that day had no way of knowing what they were writing. They just knew the line felt right.
Langley has never treated the run like a victory lap. She has kept working and kept releasing music while the song does what it was built to do. The numbers show people are still choosing it every single week.
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- DandelionVinylWith “Choosin’ Texas” and “Dandelion”See it on Amazon
- still hungoverCD · Deluxe editionWith “you look like you love me” and “nicotine”See it on Amazon
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One more week at the top and “Choosin’ Texas” ties the longest non-holiday reign in Hot 100 history. A song that began with a kangaroo and a Texas license plate is now measuring itself against the biggest runs the chart has ever seen.
The song has a system. And right now, that system is still working.
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