sidetracks & detours, Sunday 18th October, 2026: WE ARE ALL CHOOSIN´ TEXAS + Arts & Culture At The Camel House

WE ARE ALL CHOOSIN´ TEXAS.

Choosin´ Texas, the so called country-pop ballad, (whatever the heck that means !) spent 23 weeks at the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100, beating Mariah Carey’s previous record and nudging her off her throne.

Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” has broken the record for the longest-running No. 1 song of all time.

The country singer’s hit song has remained on the list’s No. 1 spot to beat the 22 weeks Mariah Carey’s eternal holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has garnered from 2019 to 2026. Carey has a chance to retake the record this holiday season, but for now, Langley’s stolen her crown. 

According to Billboard data data, Langley’s hit shows no signs of stopping. It’s held the top spot on the company’s Digital Song Sales chart for 18 weeks — tying with two BTS songs — and the No. 1 place on the Hot Country Songs chart for 41 weeks. (Her reign atop the Digital Song Sales chart would have been longer, were it not for the AI-generated song “Walk My Walk” by avatar-artist Breaking Rust.) Langley’s second album, Dandelion, held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart until Monday (September 21), when it was dethroned by Jhene Aiko’s Westside Whimsey. “Choosin’ Texas” has gone down 9% in streaming over the past week, but its predominance atop the charts means algorythms are likely to continue boosting it onto playlists and suggesting it to users.

Other songs that have grasped at, though not touched, Carey’s record include Shaboozey’s 2024 country hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” and Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito,” as well as another Mariah Carey hit with an assist from Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day.” 

“It feels surreal,” Langley told Billboard News of the song’s ever-growing accolades. “I think this has been the biggest moment for me, where I’ve seen where fans can change your career. For so long, you’re like, ‘Alright, one song at a time, one record at a time.’ But with this one song — and they’ve done it continuously for me — but really with ‘Choosin’ Texas’ … man, have they taken ahold of it. It’s wild.”

Ella wrote the tune at a writing retreat in 2024, with help from Miranda Lambert. Lambert, too, admitted confusion at the song’s growth. “It was not on my bingo card for ‘Choosin’ Texas’ to take over the world,” Billboard was told by Lambert as she explained that . “… I’ve never seen anything like it. So when Ella calls and is like, ‘What does this mean?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know. You might need to call Taylor Swift right now [and ask her], because this is, like, that kind of big.’”

Artificial Intelligence warmed to Choosin´Texas  on its release with ´reviewers´´ noting that unlike past powerhouse crossover smashes, Langley’s vocal delivery is calm, conversational, and unforced.

Pitchfork and The Guardian, both of which employ real-life human critics,   praised its smooth, retro-modern mid- tempo two-step feel, (what **? ) featuring a gentle guitar and pedal steel-forward arrangement.

Ellen Langley co-wote with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor, and the track has been lauded for its clever, specific heartbreak lyricism about a lover leaving for Texas over Tennessee

Via TikTok trends and its broad format appeal, Choosin´Texas resonated globally, crossing over into mainstream pop culture while maintaining traditional country roots.

The song was, of course, the first single release off Ella Langley’s album Dandelion  launched in October 2025.

Despite holding mis-givings about its limiting title many of us here at sidetracks & detours religiously tune into the weekly Bob Harris Country Show on BBC Radio 2, broadcasting every Thursday night at nine pm. I mean, I grew up on country music. I had been introduced to the genre by an older crush when we sat and listened to Johnny Cash on her record-player. She ran a b&b with her husband, and although I still hope she never knew my feelings for her, she changed my life. To be fair, I was 300 miles from home, being on holiday with my parents and younger brother. Her husband was a powerful lumberjack in the Caledonian forests around their town and it was because she wasn´t mine that I walked the line!

Anyways, where was I? That´s right back to those suspicions of BBC Radio 2 and their classifications !

I have to concede that the sixty minutes show is always packed with traditional and modern country. However, they are sprinkled by songs, old and new, that, although I never label anything, I label the new as Americana ! I still like the country content but it is for this Americana that I tune in.

Ethan Beck´s Paste review of Ellen´s then new album, Dandelion, was posted under the headline of Ellen Langley Is Trying To Find Her Footing. It is a heading that seems to be more than a whisper that there are people out there who wonder where she will go next.

We ask, instead, will she be Choosin´ Texas, Country or Americana?

That that first option, of course is the title of her single that took the charts and radio playlists by storm a few weeks ago.

Whispering Bob Harris, (for whom we are all wishing well in his current state of hospitalisation) raved about Ella Langley only a fortnight or so before stepping off air from his  BBC 2 Country Radio Show, and he seems to love Choosin´ Texas the single as much as we know he loves Texas the state. Not so much wondering which direction she might take next he seems rather to applaud the diversity she has already shown in such an early part of her career.

So I am reading: Ethan´s review Choosin´ Texas by Ella Langley

As I read it suggested to me Americana at its best, though I must admit it also sounds like the kind of country I used to like before I had ever heard of Americana. So here am I mixing up my Americana and my country even as Paste further confuses the issue by referring the song´s backing of ´glowing guitars worthy of Steve Winwood´s post-Trafic music of the nineteen eighties.´

Furthermore, Paste suggest that millions of people around the globe have surrendered to Langley’s disappointed warning that a “cowboy always finds a way to leave.” over the glowing guitars worthy of Steve Winwood’s ‘80s output.

The reviewer tells us that Dandelion is a somewhat ethereal offering. It has a shift in sound that he believes has made space for an album  of  authentic songs that could be suitable for both country concerts and the plethora of arena dates that await her.

Her lyrics seem to state firmly that she intends to stay true to her roots,……wherever those roots are grounded and however secure they are. Like Colin Lever, my partner in Lendanear half a century ago, (and also like Bob Dylan) Ellen Langley has been known to throw in Froggy Went A Courtin´ to open a gig. The song unearths roots  that go back to when she used to sing the song as a child with her grandpa. That, says Mr. Beck, might prove that you can take this woman out of Alabama, but you can´t take Alabama out of the woman.  

Can that really be true? If you are sitting on top of the world can you still be the same person you were when you were simply dreaming of sitting on the top of the world?

Can you really be the same woman as when you were a young teenager playing guitar in church?

Whatever direction  Ella Langley decides to travel on, she does not have to have to decide her destination. She can just follow sidetracks & detours wherever they are signposted, follow them so far and then return to the main highway

Even on Dandelion, her very successful album, says the Paste reviewer, Ella Langley implies that she has never changed, , but then often she seems to retract that claim.

Whatever the truth is,  the subjects of her songs are change, choice and chance. They seem to matter to her. That she is growing quickly as an artist is apparent when she tears a page out the Kasey Musgrave´s guide, when she applies, or allows, what Paste described as ´shimmering, spacey arrangements that support unquestionable hooks´. This, surely, symbolises progress, with ´dreamy guitar, parts, detectable doo wop instrumental sounds and dramatic drumming´.

At this stage of her career this might be heard as Chuckle Brothers ´to me, to you´ uncertainty. In fact, though, that feeling of push and pull is most noticeable in the story telling carried on Dandelion.

Be Her could well be a radio hit or, if released as a single, could well emulate the success of Choosin´Texas. Be Her, we are warned in the Paste review, has annoying pun-like rhymes that serve as not-so-cryptic clues that she is still holding on to the simpler times of her young life.

Underneath the disco strut she is rapping  “Take all my money / Everything I have,” and is perhaps wishing she could get back to where she began. 

Langley’s mixed feelings aren’t only focused on her surging success. On this album she describes past relationships, which often sound like what Paste call unsurprising disappointments. She has a great voice for those breakup ballads.  Her gravelly, certain vocals, echo authenticity.

This is certainly not soppy sentimental goo, however.

Her delivery on a last orders bar-room song is sung in almost couldn´t-care-less  tones. So, even as  Last Call For Us elevates a familiar setup, while her breathy, aching approach on Low Lights smoothes the sorry-for-themselves strings, pitiful pedal steel, and aching organ until all go down smoothly.

Paste says that ´on both, she sings like she knows better but can’t manage to pull away´. And she manages to hold together the bland, mid-tempo songs with her voice, lending credibility to the sluggish Broken and the tired Loving Life Again. It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Over bongos and backing vocals from co-producer Miranda Lambert on You & Me Time, Langley helps the awkward, wordy chorus sound almost sexy. 

Langley is a laconic communicator, preferring  subtle, language and  mobile melodies which often emphasize an unexpected word, as if she’s dog-earing a line that we should return to.

Although her tales, such as Something Simple,. sometimes seem devoid of context, Dandelion is released with a healthy level of assurance.

The thrill, and tension, of Langley is held taut by the emotional pull of the comforts, and perhaps certainties, of her past and the potential of her future.

Like John Stewart before her, who always hoped that some lonesome picker would find some healing in his songs,  she too, wants to write timeless songs. It feels like Ella Langley wants her songs to be passed down and rediscovered in 75 years.

That desire might be what led  her to cover It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, the Kitty Wells classic which is a symbol of the country history Langley hopes to contribute to.

Paste suggest that maybe the next country upstart will be covering Ella Langley !?

John Stewart wrote lyrics that served as invisible angels delivering our codes to live by.

Paste always has its finger glued on the pulse.

and Whispering Bob Harris and his recommendations have never failed me.

I´m sure that we all agree that any artist has the right to cross genres, and that should Ella Langley wish to ride her pony on a boat we would applaud her for doing so.

THE CAMEL HOUSE

offering

Unique concerts / exhibitions  

A 200-year-old camel stable that was converted into a concert and exhibition venue about 20 years ago. Danielle Baumgartner and Roland Urech are keeping the tradition alive.

The new owners of CAMEL HOUSE, Danielle and Roland, cordially invite you to experience unique events in this very special place. With their love for art and Lanzarote, they are both eager to welcome artists and guests. It is a joy for them to see people gather at CAMEL HOUSE and enjoy cultural events together. It is also an honor for them to continue the wonderful path that Sir Ernest Hall began here.

A 200-year-old camel stable that was converted into a concert and exhibition venue about 20 years ago. Danielle Baumgartner and Roland Urech are keeping the tradition alive.

NINA SAVISEVIK

UN VIAJE ROMANTICO DEL PATETISMO A L POESIA

at THE CAMEL HOUSE

on FRIDAY 23 OCTOBER , 2026 at 7.00 pm

preview by Norman Warwick

Nina Savisevic (left) lives in the Devon in the UK, and she spoke earlier this year to a local journalist, Su Carroll. The young pianist told her of how her music has led to ambitious plans for work in her home county and ways to take her music around the world.

I am not sure if she has seen this venue at the time of publishing this preview, but when she gives her recital at The Camel House, she will be playing in an iconic venue, of history and grandeur.

When your natural talent as a pianist is spotted at the age of five, maintaining that passion must be a challenge. But not for Nina Savicevic from Topsham who is dedicated to her music.

‘I connect to my feelings better when I play the piano. I want to be 90 and still playing and still having things to work on,’ she says.

While living in Russia with her parents while her father was studying there, five-year-old Nina began piano lessons, giving her first concert a few months later, much to her parents’ surprise.

‘None of my family members – parents, grandparents – none of them are musicians, so it was all quite random.’

Although there’s no musical connections in her immediate family, Nina is of Croatian-Serbian descent which she says may explain something.

‘The Slavic people are very passionate people – they’re very loud and they love their music.´ she told her interviewer.

A lot of that emotion flows into my playing. I’m genuinely quite an emotional person and I’m very drawn to that kind of music. I love Mozart, one of my strongest composers to play, and I really understand his music. I also love Chopin and Liszt. I’ve recently been playing a lot of Croatian-Serbian music including Stevan Mokranjac and Dora Pejacevic – it’s nice to be playing work by a woman and to introduce audiences to music of which they  have previously heard’

An only child, Nina’s parents Silvana and Darko have been behind her every step of the way.

‘My parents are incredible. They just made sure I did a lot. I played a lot of tennis, to county level, and ballet and acting, although I was very shy. They wanted to keep me busy. Mum was more keen on me taking piano lessons than I was. She was a national basketball player and so she was of the mind-set that you keep going and don’t give up. The same with dad really as well.

‘When I was 12 I went to music school and that opened my eyes.’

Nina worked hard to finesse her skills and is now approaching 22 and in the final year of her Bachelor of Music degree at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

‘I knew that music was the right thing for me,’ she muses. ‘A lot of people back away from music when they reach adulthood but it’s so important to me. There wouldn’t be Nina without the piano and without music. It’s changed my life forever.

‘My passion never wavered, it’s just got stronger. I practice all the time, because you have to practice to get better. I do have days where I feel a lot more tired but I always have the desire to keep going.

My piano is my priority but I like to keep fit and I do things like swimming, walking and loads of sport. You have to be careful. Musicians in general can develop injuries if they practise too much or have the wrong technique. I love being active, it’s good for mental health, but I make sure I also socialise.’

Nina is kept busy with concerts all around the country but she told Su that she wanted to create something enduring closer to home.

‘I knew I’d love to have my own music festival one day and I’m literally doing that now. It’s great to bring people together, especially after the pandemic. I can finally share my talent and love for music with other people after nearly two years.

It has completely changed everything and it all means a lot more to me now.

‘There is always a connection with the audience. When I first started performing around the Exeter area I was very nervous and it took me two or three years to feel comfortable.

I look at it as work now, part of what I need to do and I’ve got used to controlling the nerves´.

As for the future, Nina says she is ambitious.

 ‘I’d love one day to play Carnegie Hall, say, or the Royal Albert Hall. I want to have a long and varied career. I’d love my festival to become well known. I’m a big advocate for education and love teaching. I like to think I’m doing all the right things. And I’m happy.’

As our regular readers well know, we called our  arts and culture blog sidetracks & detours because we believe that the arts sail the oceans, jump from culture to culture as we saw and heard at the recent Ritmos Del Mundo en Playa Blanca earlier this month, which we comprehensively reviewed a couple of weeks ago, in a free to read article still available in our archives of over 1,800 pieces. All you have to do is to type Ritmos Del Mundo 2026 into our search engine. That was a festival produced under the auspices of the Cabildo (parliament of Lanzarote) and there will be fifty + concerts at 20 + venues across all eight islands in Janaury 2027, collated and curated by the 43^rd annual classical musical Festival on Lanzarote.

We also have independant artists on the island from poets to potters,, from dancers to drummes, from folkloristse to funkies and from creative writers to ceramicists: see the statues by the late Cesar Manrique and by his current followers that adorn our island. All you have to do is follow your art.

We also have supporters and promoters of the arts scene, like Roland and his partner at The Camel House (see below)who now not only hosts concerts but also invites workshops and discussion groups