Lainey Wilson Takes Us Track By Track On Whirlwind Deluxe

Lainey Wilson is back and bigger than ever. Out today, Whirlwind (Deluxe) expands on her acclaimed 2024 album with even more grit, heart, and unmistakable southern soul. 

Featuring brand new tracks alongside fan favourites, this 19 song collection is a love letter to the road she’s travelled and the roots she’s never let go of.

From the honky-tonk stomp of Bell Bottoms Up to the raw vulnerability of Whiskey Colored Crayon, Wilson continues to prove she’s one of the most dynamic voices in modern country. 

To celebrate the release, she’s giving fans an exclusive look behind the curtain, breaking down each song in her own words, sharing everything from writing with country legends, and even some real-life love stories, to the unexpected moments that helped shape the record.

Here’s Lainey Wilson, in her own words, taking us track by track through Whirlwind (Deluxe).

WHIRLWIND DELUXE TRACK BY TRACK

FROM LAINEY WILSON

Keep Up With Jones

Keeping Up With Jones. It’s really got that live feel, that like band feel to it. A little Jerry Reed. And I love Jerry Reed and I’m definitely inspired by him when it comes to guitar tones and things like that I’m just drawn to. But it’s a song about George Jones. And I mean who don’t love George Jones you know. I wish I could’ve met him, I think that we probably would’ve been good friends. And also this is a good ole drinking song, so I think that he would’ve signed off on it.

Country’s Cool Again

Country’s Cool Again, I’m not talking about country music. Country music has always been cool, when I wrote this song it was literally an idea that I got from scrolling on TikTok and seeing all the kids wearing their hats, riding their horses, wearing their Wrangler jeans, really embracing that western way of life and I take a lot of pride in that, that’s how I grew up, so it’s really cool to see people want to do the things that I grew up doing and it makes me feel at home, so I hope it makes everybody feel at home too.

Good Horses (feat. Miranda Lambert)

So Miranda has kind of become my country music big sister, she tells me what to do, what not to do and she’s there for me, she calls me, she checks on me and she called me one day and was like I want you to come out to my farm, I want us just to enjoy being outside and feeling the wind on our face and I want to feed ya, I want you to take a nap, maybe we’ll write a song and that’s what we did. We had the time of our life and we just really connected and realised that we had even more in common than we already knew and our buddy Luke Dick who is an incredible songwriter was out there as well and as we were sitting on the balcony of one of her cabins writing this song, three bluebirds flew up and landed in the exact same spot as three bluebirds did when they were writing her song Bluebird and so I take that as a little special omen I guess you could say.

Broken Hearts Still Beat

You know, I have met so many different types of people from all different walks of life in the past two years. I mean, we've toured Australia, UK, Europe this year, and what I've realized is that we're all actually a lot more alike than you think. We all love, we all cry, we all hurt, we have all the same emotions. And people share stories with me, and I can't help but like, write heartbreak songs that have triumph at the end. Because I want to remind these people who are telling me these stories that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Whirlwind

Whirlwind was written during a time in my life that was speeding 90 miles an hour. It's the word that I kept hearing and seeing and saying every single time I was asked to describe the past couple of years. Whirlwind is a love song that describes two rebel, spirited kind of people finding each other. It's about finding somebody who can keep up and run this crazy race called life.

Call A Cowboy

My daddy definitely inspired Call A Cowboy. I wrote it with The Heart Wranglers, which are two of my dear friends, when we were in Wickenburg, Arizona, and we were just having so much fun on this ranch, and we got the opportunity to play cowboy all week, and we started really talking about what makes a cowboy, a cowboy. And the more we talked about it, the more we talked about the qualities that make a cowboy, a cowboy like working hard and rolling your sleeves up and being a man of your word and jumping in when the job needs to get done, and just being a kind human. And we realized right there that it's not about wearing a cowboy hat. It's not about wearing your Wrangler Jeans and learning how to ride a bucking bull. It's about the way that you treat people you.

Hang Tight Honey

Hang Tight Honey, that’s my life right now y’all. I mean I’m running up and down the road, I got a good man at home who loves me, cheers me on, supports me. He hi-fives me when I walk in the house, he hi-fives me when I walk out. And this is just a song about all the hard working folks out there who not only work for themselves but they bust their tail for their families.

Bar in Baton Rouge

This was a song idea that my best friend Casey Tyndall had, and I think she was like hanging out with her husband, and they just kind of started talking about, like the mountains on the can. And you know how cool it would be to write a song about, like, staring at the mountains, but being nowhere near them. And that's how the song idea was born. So Beer In Baton Rouge. It just kind of sounded good, like those B’s that like alliteration and and also, I mean, I'm a Louisiana girl, and so I've spent a lot of time, time down in Louisiana, down in Baton Rouge, at LSU football games and all that. And I know they like their Coors, like down there too. 

Counting Chickens

Well since I’m dating a duck, I figured I’d write a song about a chicken. That’s the truth. We have so much fun together and this is just another way to say ‘I love you’. ‘I love you’ has been said in a million different ways but I can almost bet you it’s never been said like this.

4x4xU

A certain person named Duck. Quack. Quack. Inspired this song. You know, I feel like during this time of my life that is constantly changing, and I'm trying to keep one foot on the ground. I gotta make sure that I'm like Lainey, the sister, the friend, the daughter, so I can be the artist too, and that just means keeping my people close. And so when I wrote this song, that's what I was thinking about, just thinking about the simple things in life that bring me a lot of joy and happiness and make me me.

Ring Finger

Ring Finger gave me an opportunity to step into the shoes of another character and write from that point of view, and I won’t lie this character is pretty crazy, but I got a crazy side too. It was fun and it’s telling this story about this girl who got done wrong and she kept the ring and he got the finger.

Middle Of It

I remember my friends Dallas and Trannie, The Heart Wranglers, coming over to my house, this was when I was in the thick of it, meaning just super extremely busy on the road not knowing where I was, what day it was and my daddy was also still sick at that time. I remember just sitting in the middle of the hardwood floor and my friends asked me they said ‘How are you doing?’ and I said ‘I just feel like I'm smack dab in the middle of it.’ And we’re like keep talking, keep talking and I said it’s hard for me at times to zoom out and see where I started and where I’m going to end up’ then we really started digging a little deeper and we realised that I guess the not knowing is the fun part,

Devil Don’t Go There

I’ve definitely had a few relationships with people and not just even romantic relationships but even friendships with people who have acted like the dang devil or there were times when it was hard for me to understand how they all could treat somebody the way that they did, and yeah, sometimes the devil wouldn’t even go there.

Whiskey Colored Crayon

Whiskey Colored Crayon came from a word exercise that one of my co-writers does. And he writes random lists of things and whiskey was on one of the lists and coloured crayon was on another. And after mixing and matching hundreds of different words he came up with Whiskey Colored Crayon and we developed a story around it. So it’s about this little kindergarten kid who goes through a lot at home and he’s drawing this picture of his family and then he gets to his daddy and he asks his teacher if she has a whiskey coloured crayon. You gotta go listen to the rest to hear the rest of the story but it is one of the songs that I am very very proud of writing.

Somewhere Over Laredo

I found a new creative avenue Somewhere Over Laredo, because I was able to put myself back into a pair of shoes that I wore years ago when I wrote this one. It's about that nostalgia for things and people that weren't meant to stay in your life but still left a mark on you. 

King Ranch, King George, King James

I wrote King Ranch, King George, King James, about the things that I hold close, my roots, my faith and the music that shaped me. It's a tip of the hat to the kind of country living that keeps me grounded, and the kings that ride with me through all of it. 

Yesterday, All Day, Every Day

Yesterday, All Day, Every Day, came from thinking about the kind of love that never lets up. And that's the kind of love that me and my old fiance Duck have. This song right here is a play by play of the night we met. Y'all be sure to check it out. 

Bell Bottoms Up

Bell Bottoms Up is the theme song of my bar in downtown Nashville. I wrote it with my band and we recorded it at the one and only Abbey Road Studios in London, England. This one’s a fun one, it’s a honkytonking good timing tune meant to be turned all the way up.

Peace, Love, and Cowboys

Peace, Love, and Cowboys is my way of saying that a little wild and a little tame can live in the same heart. It's about finding freedom in the chaos and knowing that sometimes the cowboy way is the only way you.