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 the musical magic of Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas? To be sure, the singer is drop dead gorgeous, but the rendition holds much more than that. Somehow, it's the combination of her naturally powerful vocal timbre and sheer presence, the follow-me melody, the lush Nashville production and the lyrics. It's a story song but these are not your often simple or sometimes corny country lyrics. At first glance the title suggests the love that any Texan might feel for their home state, until it achingly emerges that "Texas" and "Tennessee" are semiotic symbols for two girls from their own respective states (in formal English parlance these are synecdoches, which rather fittingly rhymes with Tennessee). And there are other subtle little lyrical divergences and non-rhyming. E.g. check this rap fan's comment - wouldn't most of us be tempted to use, say, "charms" to rhyme with "arms", instead of using "spark"? And btw, the "arms" there is a word that anyone from the late Queen of England to Gabrielle Anwar would die to enunciate like that, with its wistful trailing "s". How's that for a Country girl! 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 hickory-smoked Southern twang is alluring, as this guy also finds. "Abilene" melts into the ears like raw honey and 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 slop? Against that voice?! Yeah, go try 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 on 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, starting with Dm at the intro.

Edited by - Nielen on 10/12/2026 14:14:29

Edited by - chuckv97 on 09/29/2026 12:27:36

 

Edited by - chuckv97 on 09/30/2026 19:01:57

Edited by - Nielen on 09/30/2026 23:43:29