Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” Was Inspired by a Kangaroo?

What does a baby kangaroo have to do with Ella Langley‘s smash hit “Choosin’ Texas”? Evidently, a lot.

How Did a Baby Kangaroo Inspire Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas”?

While the song makes no actual reference to the marsupial itself, the lyrics were birthed from a wild story involving one of the track’s writers, Miranda Lambert.

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“Choosin’ Texas” was crafted by Langley and Lambert, in addition to Joy Beth Taylor and Luke Dick during a writer’s retreat. Typically during these sessions, artists and writers toss out lines they’ve been chewing on, or they divulge stories to see if anything sparks an idea.

Let’s just say, Lambert had a doozy of a story to tell.

As Langley tells it, Lambert launched into a story during the retreat about a time when she was pulled over and it just so happened that she had a baby kangaroo in her car.

Details regarding why the animal was along for the ride have yet to be divulged, but she mentioned in her story that she had Texas plates on her car at the time.

Miranda Lambert Was Pulled Over With a Kangaroo in Her Car

“She was driving along a dirt road, and the kangaroo was in the back seat and her dog was in the passenger seat and there was a lot going on,” Langley tells the crowd in the live video below. “And she got pulled over.”

If you know Lambert and her passion for animal advocacy and rescuing critters, the story doesn’t sound too crazy.

“She said the lady cop pulled her over and she said, ‘Of course I had Texas plates on the back of my car,'” Langley recounts. “And I said, ‘Well she’s from Texas, I can tell.'”

That one line became the hook on which they hung the entire song. The “Weren’t for the Wind” singer says she came up with a little melody on the way to the bathroom, and from there, the song spilled out of them in about 30 minutes.

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“Choosin’ Texas” continues to gain in popularity. While it continues to dominate the country music charts, it has also crossed over into other genres. The song has spent two weeks in the No. 5 slot on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs chart.

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This begs the question will the two women continue to work together in the future? According to Langley, there’s more to come.

“There’s definitely more,” she told Elaina Smith at the 2025 CMA Awards. “We’re definitely doing something really cool together that is more than just the songs.”

We’re gonna call it right here: Both of these women will be in the Country Music Hall of Fame one day.