It's testimony to how far out on a limb we are here at the southern tip of Africa that I've only now learnt of Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas (and am binge-listening even as I write). Evidently it has bust every significant record anyone can find and occupied the top spot on the Billboard 100 for so long that that venerated thermometer is threatening to collapse under the weight. I don't participate in social media. I scan YooToob and the odd substack site for items of interest and have a Pinterest site where I punt my novels under a pseudonym y'all won't find . So the only platform I have to occasionally air my views in public is the BHO. Here goes:

The last time a song spread its cloak over the listening world like this with no respect for genre boundaries, was possibly Sting's Every Breath You Take, back in the '80s (I guess everyone will have their own opinion on that). And what makes its magic? To be sure the girl is drop dead gorgeous, but the rendition holds much more than that. Somehow, it's the combination of her innocently powerful vocal timbre, sheer presence, the usual lush Nashville production and the lyrics. It's a story song but these are not the often simple or sometimes corny country ones. At first glance the title suggests the natural love that Sherry feels for her home state, until it achingly emerges that "Texas" and "Tennessee" are semiotic symbols for two girls from their respective states (in formal English parlance these are synecdoches, which rather fittingly rhymes with Tennessee). And there are other subtle little lyrical divergences and intentional non-rhyming. I know that Miranda Lambert, Joybeth Taylor and Luke Dick are co-writers but I don't know exactly who did what. Whatever, the result is mesmerizing. God, what a breath of fresh air. Even her smoking Southern twang is heartbreakingly alluring, as this guy also finds: (see @3:20). The "Lone Star State" at the end of the bridge and "C'mon baby" before the outtro actually tear me up through the goosebumps, dammit. AI? Yeah, go tell another one.

Go, go, go with the wind, dark-haired young Alabama enchantress. In their graves, the hearts of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy are beating again and though their eyes are closed they are smiling at you for eternity.

Now, it's Monday morning here and I think I'll go probe the local liquor store for a wee bottle o' jack to help still my beating brain.

Key of C#. Capo first. Play C.

Edited by - Nielen on 09/28/2026 02:48:09