Introduction
This week, Backstage Country is pulling back the curtain on some of country music’s most compelling tunes, as Elaina Smith welcomes the incredibly talented Ella Langley as her co-host. If you’ve ever felt like Langley’s lyrics perfectly capture the chaotic beauty of your own romantic escapades, you’re in for a treat! She’s renowned for writing songs that cut straight to the heart, and now she’s ready to reveal the true inspirations behind them, live on air.
Langley’s recent single, “Weren’t for the Wind,” from the deluxe re-release of her debut album, Hungover, has been a fan favorite. Smith pressed the Alabama native on the song’s origin, to which Langley charmingly admitted, “We wrote this song in the fall of 2023, I think. I was on tour with John Pardi, I believe. It might be 2024.” She playfully added, “But the last four years of my life, I’ve been [in] one long consecutive year.”
Langley recounted the unexpected turn of events that led to the song’s creation: “It’s hard to recall, but I was on tour with John Pardi, and I brought two writers out. We flew all the way to, I think we flew to Utah or Idaho or something out there. And so, I flew Joybeth Taylor, who is famed throughout all of my music, and Johnny Clawson, who has two cuts on this record. And then right as we got there, Jon Pardi ended up having to cancel the shows because he was sick. So, I was like, ‘Oh my god, we’re all the way out in Utah. What are we gonna do?’ I just got full of these riders out here, and so we just rode the bus back.” She fondly described her first bus tour experience, “This was my first tour by bus, so it was just like this little rink-y-dee. But it’s still a bus baby, and that makes a difference, and so we’re on the bus and we’re going through Wyoming, I think. This is maybe the last song we wrote on the retreat.”
She also shared how “Weren’t for the Wind” became a powerful opener for her shows: “It’s such a sick open show, the way that we do it, the way my band and I choreographed the song. So yeah, when we would go out there, fans were literally like, ‘Aaah!’ You know that thing you used to do as a kid, to pretend fans were [screaming]. Oh yeah, that’s the actual sound. It’s my real life; it is awesome.”
Langley also dished on the viral explosion of her collaboration with Riley Green, “You Look Like You Love Me.” Smith asked about the song’s initial success, and Langley revealed her simple strategy: “That was the first tease of the song.” She posted a single TikTok of herself lip-syncing the verse and chorus, and it quickly garnered “a couple million views!” She confessed, “We were nervous about putting the song out a little bit. It’s unlike anything that I’ve heard on country radio or not. I wasn’t even thinking about radio at that time. I was just trying to put a record out and pick the singles, you know? And I was like, ‘You [know] what? I’m just gonna go crazy and do this one.’ Riley was in it, and I just thought this could be a moment. It’s gonna go one way or the other.”
The rest, as they say, is history. “So, when I put that teaser out and it blew up in that way, and then I did one more by myself and then another couple million views. I think that one has like 12 million views or something. And then we played Red Rocks, and we got content of the song and then announced Riley was it. And then it just was like game over at that point.”
Don’t miss out on these incredible insights! Tune in to Backstage Country from July 7–11 to hear all the behind-the-song stories directly from Ella Langley. Because as we all know, behind every great song is an even better story, and Ella’s ready to share hers!