Ella Langley has a No. 1 song at country radio. The rising star is celebrating her first reign at the top of the charts with “You Look Like You Love Me,” her collaboration with Riley Green.
Langley spoke out about the accomplishment on social media, sharing a photo of her on stage as a child.
“That little girl has the #1 song at country radio today,” Langley wrote. “Been dreaming this dream for as long as I can remember. I’ve talked about wanting to do this for as long as I can remember. I haven’t lived a single day where this wasn’t the plan. The thing about a dream is, it’s just a dream. Today it feels real. This past year, it’s felt real. Thank you for listening and sharing and believing.”
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Langley and Green won a CMA Award for Musical Event of the Year, for “You Look Like You Love Me,” even as the song was still making its way up the charts. The song is the duo’s second collaboration. Langley previously joined Green on “Don’t Mind If I Do,” the title track of Green’s third studio album.
“I didn’t think this song was ever going to come out in the first place,” Langley said backstage at the CMA Awards. “It was just a song in my audio recordings for almost a year after we wrote it. And a girl named Mya Hansen believed it enough to slip it in every Dropbox link picking for the album. And everyone loved it. And then Riley asked us on tour. And when I was listening to the cut, I was thinking, ‘Dang, how cool would it be if we turned it into a duet and kind of gave the guy side of a woman walking up to him in the bar in the first place?’ And now, we’re here with two awards in our hands.”
Langley wrote “You Look Like You Love Me” in 2022 with Aaron Raitiere, although she never imagined at the time that the song would be a single, much less her first No. 1 hit.
“His ideas are nuts and I love writing with him,” Langley told Billboard. “We were in a write and he was like, ‘So how’s your relationship life going?’ and I said, ‘Honestly, I’m at the point where if they look like they love me, I just got to get out of there.’ And he was like, ‘That’s a great song title.’
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“Six months later, we had another writing session,” she continued. “I wanted a funny song that I could play around a bonfire. We literally just hit record and wrote probably 16 verses and then picked our favorite ones and put it together. Then Riley added a verse, and it’s just this sweet love song.”
Langley now has two duets with Green, but there are other artists she hopes to someday collaborate with on a song.
“Eric Church, Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert,” Langley said. “Miley Cyrus has also been at the top of my list—I would love to even just sit in a room and ask her questions. And Ashley McBryde’s songwriting is so incredible and just very real-life and honest. I think me and Megan Moroney could come up with something awesome.”
“You Look Like You Love Me” is from Langley’s Hungover album, out now. Find the song, and all of Langley’s music, at EllaLangley.com.
Photo Credit: Caylee Robillard