Ella Langley and Miranda Lambert got into a light-hearted “redneck” competition over who would be the quickest to get rid of a snake during a writing session.
But the most exciting part of the story might be the part that has nothing to do with the snake at all.
The two artists talked about the incident during a conversation on Elle‘s “Three Generations” series. Reba McEntire was on camera, too, but during this particular anecdote, she mostly just sat back and laughed at the hijinks.
Why Did Miranda Lambert Get Mad at Ella Langley Over a Snake?
“One of the last writes we had, we were in the middle of the write and we saw a snake,” Langley recalls. “And I tried to get up and catch it, and Miranda walked outside with a shotgun.”
“We were at the farm, y’all,” Lambert adds with a laugh. “We were trying to out-redneck each other, is what we were doing.”
Why did Lambert wind up mad at Langley? Well, it seems like she never wound up getting to use her shotgun.
“The snake did not get shot,” Langley details. “I scared it off, and she was mad at me for that. She was like, ‘Dang it, I was right there.'”
What Does That Writing Session Mean For Ella Langley + Miranda Lambert’s Future?
In all the excitement about the snake, most fans might not notice some pretty significant news: That writing session sounds like it’s recent, maybe even after they’d finished their work together on Langley’s Dandelion project.
Langley acknowledged in the interview that “when you find people you love making music with, you don’t wanna quit doing it.”
Does that mean that fans can expect Lambert and Langley to work together more in the future? That seems like a pretty strong possibility.
Lambert co-produced Langley’s Dandelion album and had a hand in writing her massive hit, “Choosin’ Texas.” There’s also a duet between the two, “Butterfly Season,” on the project.
In fact, Langley says that the lyric she’s most proud of on Dandelion comes from “Butterfly Season.”
“Don’t even know her / That girl from last October / Right now I’d like to show her / Who we’ve turned into / How flowers look in June / When we’re on to something new,” is the line Langley pointed to during the Elle interview.
“[It] sums up my life in the past…I mean, all the time,” she reflects. “I’m constantly looking back, like, ‘Wow.’ You don’t notice the growth when it’s happening, necessarily. It doesn’t feel like growth, it feels more like you’re dragging your feet through the mud.”
The 15 Best Ella Langley Songs
Ella Langley showed up in country music’s mainstream as a dark horse with an unlikely hit: “You Look Like You Love Me,” a Riley Green duet that was catchy as all get-out but featured some unusual (and old-school) stylistic choices like talk-singing.
But it was a smash. And that turned out to be just the beginning of what Langley had to offer. She’s continued to dominate with hits like “Weren’t For the Wind” and the crossover mega-hit “Choosin’ Texas,” becoming one of the most high profile acts in country music and a bonafide star even beyond the genre.
Keep reading for Taste of Country’s countdown of 15 Ella Langley songs that put her on the map, and then rewrote the rules of what traditional country sounds like — and how successful it can be even beyond the genre.
Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak
