Matthew McConaughey Covers Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' on Fallon — and the Song's 17th Week at No. 1 Makes It a Timely Pick
Matthew McConaughey picked up a mandolin and covered Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, Aug. 12 — the same week the song logged its 17th nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the singles chart that tracks the biggest songs in the United States across sales, streams and radio airplay.
McConaughey's version came courtesy of the show's Audience Suggestion Box bit, in which viewers write in with requests. The viewer who submitted this one noted McConaughey's upcoming film The Rivals of Amziah King, in which he plays a member of a bluegrass band. That set the tone: McConaughey on mandolin, indie folk trio the Last Bison backing him, and Fallon himself strumming a washboard. Billboard reported the performance and its chart context on Aug. 13. The Tonight Show shared the clip across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The 17-week run gave Langley sole possession of the fourth-longest stay at No. 1 in the Hot 100's history. Only three songs have spent more consecutive or nonconsecutive weeks in the top spot. Langley, a 27-year-old singer from Alabama, was scheduled to perform at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas on Thursday night, Aug. 13 — a booking that landed her in the state her breakout single namechecks on the very week it hit a new milestone.
Langley's response was brief. She reposted the clip on an Instagram story with the caption: "I may never recover from this."
The timing was layered. The Rivals of Amziah King is due out Friday, Aug. 14, and it marks McConaughey's first film role in more than seven years. Set in the rural backwoods of Oklahoma, it follows Amziah, a charismatic, musically gifted leader of a bluegrass-playing band who also runs a honey-making operation. The Fallon performance doubled as a nod to that world — a Hollywood actor stepping into a working musician's set-up, playing a stringed instrument on late-night television rather than just talking about his movie.
For Langley, it was the latest moment in a run that has kept "Choosin' Texas" at the top of the chart for the better part of four months. A cover by an Oscar-winning actor on network television does not add to a song's chart position on its own, but it extends the reach of a track that has already reached the rarest tier of Hot 100 longevity.
