Show notes
Lainey Wilson is a force of nature.
Raised in the tiny farming town of Baskin, Louisiana (population 170) she grew up between corn fields and country radio, where music wasn't a genre but a way of life. From writing her first song at nine years old to hauling a camper trailer to Nashville at 19, her path to becoming one of country music's biggest stars was anything but overnight. It took a decade of hustle, a Hannah Montana wig, and an unshakable belief that if she could just get one opportunity, she could do the rest.
Now she's selling out arenas across the world, winning back-to-back CMA Entertainer of the Year awards, starring in Yellowstone, and counting Dolly Parton as a friend who called her "sister." Through it all, her southern charm and small-town values remain her compass; ride horses, sit on the front porch with your dogs, and never forget who you are.
This episode was filmed for Season 5 of Take 5 with Zan Rowe. Lainey was warm, funny, and generous in sharing her extraordinary journey across five songs. The theme that emerged was clear: staying grounded is a choice you make every day, and being yourself is the bravest thing you can do.
Lainey Wilson's song choices:
- Mel McDaniel - 'Louisiana Saturday Night'
- Lee Ann Womack - 'I Hope You Dance'
- CCR - 'Lookin' Out My Back Door'
- Brothers Osborne - 'I'm Not For Everyone'
- Tim McGraw - 'Humble and Kind'
00:00 Introduction: "If Dolly Parton Believes in Me, Then I'm Fine"
00:24 From Yellowstone to CMA Entertainer of the Year: "Cowgirl of the Night"
00:52 "If You Tell All Your Business, You Ain't Got None": Lainey's Daddy's Wisdom
01:06 Filming Take 5: Songs That Keep Her Grounded
01:26 Growing Up in Baskin: Music as a Lifeline to the Outside World
01:48 "I Wanna Make People Feel That Way": The Power of a Three-and-a-Half Minute Song
01:55 Where Did Your Passion Come From? Daddy's Guitar, Mama Singing in Church
02:22 "Country Wasn't a Genre, It Was a Way of Life"
02:44 First Song: Mel McDaniel, 'Louisiana Saturday Night'
03:06 Baskin, Louisiana: Population 170
03:30 "You're Either Helping Your Daddy in the Field or Sitting Around a Table Telling Stories"
03:47 Farming and Music: "A Storm Could Roll Through and Wipe It All Away"
04:17 Sowing Seeds With Faith: Farming as Metaphor for a Music Career
04:33 "My Brother Bill and My Other Brother Jack": Feeling Like They Were Singing Your Story
04:54 "Redneck People Say Things Kind of in a Backwards Way"
05:15 The Beauty of the Everyday: A One-Eyed Dog and a Single-Shot Rifle
05:33 The People of Baskin: "I Will Give You the Shirt Off My Back"
05:50 Moving to Nashville: Finding Your Village of People
06:11 A Louisiana Saturday Night: Drive-Through Daiquiris and Backyard Bonfires
06:55 "As Long as You Don't Poke the Straw Into the Cup"
07:18 "Dance in the Kitchen Till the Morning Light"
07:47 Did You Know You Had Talent? "I Knew I Needed to Believe It"
08:18 Writing Songs at a Sleepover and Singing A Cappella to Mama
08:35 Mama as Sounding Board: Songs in the Bathroom at 11 Years Old
08:52 "I Had to Believe It First, Then the People Around Me Started Believing"
09:24 Nine Years Old in Nashville: "This Feels Like Home"
09:42 "I Just Knew It": A Calling Discovered on the Interstate
10:04 Writing About Tequila and Cigarettes at Nine
10:18 Finding Her Own Voice: "The Songwriting World Was Getting Bigger"
10:37 "Every Song I Write, I'm Finding More of My Voice": 5,000 Songs and Counting
10:55 Songwriting as Therapy: "Let Me Dump This on You"
11:05 Learning About the World Through Other People's Shoes
11:26 First Performance: Kindergarten Graduation Dressed as a Butterfly
12:09 The Cherry Incident: "I Spit It Into My Granny's Hands"
12:27 "I Should've Known This Was Gonna Be a Shitshow"
12:43 The Hannah Montana Impersonator: Five Years of Birthday Parties
13:04 "This Is My Moment": Volunteering in Eighth Grade
13:29 "It Spread Like Wildfire": Touring Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas
13:49 Opening as Lainey Wilson Before Becoming Hannah Montana
14:06 "Ain't Nobody Else Gonna Go Get It for You"
14:23 Changing Behind Trees: "You Just Do What You Gotta Do"
14:39 Second Song: Lee Ann Womack, 'I Hope You Dance'
14:59 Sixth Grade: The Teacher Walked in With a Boombox
15:18 "For the First Time in My Life, a Song Hit Me Different"
15:27 "Lee Ann Womack Made Me Feel Like I Could Do Anything"
15:49 Watching the Music Video on CMT and Dreaming
16:13 "I Hope You Still Feel Small": An Anthem for Throwing Your Hat in the Ring
16:26 "Go Stand Beside an Ocean and Remember There's a Much Bigger Plan"
16:56 Keeping Your Feet Planted on the Ground
17:23 "Give Faith a Fighting Chance": Using Your Gift for Good
17:54 Self-Belief and Drive From a Young Age
18:13 "My Family Always Encouraged Me to Be Nothing But Myself"
18:38 Finding People Who Weren't Trying to Change Her
19:00 Nashville Is a 10-Year Town — and It Was Spot On
19:23 Dolly Parton, Reba, and the '90s Ladies: "They Held Onto What Made Them Them"
19:54 What Were You Doing in Those 10 Years?
20:13 19 Years Old, 2011: A Camper Trailer Hauled to Nashville
20:46 Jerry Cupit: Parking the Camper for Free and Learning to Write Songs
21:07 "If You're Writing About a Blue Truck, How Does That Truck Make You Feel?"
21:24 My Grandfather's Favor: What He Did for Jerry Ended Up Helping Me
21:51 "Should've Packed It Up and Got the Hell Out of Dodge": Never Giving Up
22:13 Year Seven Publishing Deal, Year Eight Record Deal: "Now the Hard Work Started"
22:33 "I'd Been Preparing for the Race, and Then I Finally Entered It"
22:55 Keeping the Faith: "That Weird Sense of Peace I Got as a Nine-Year-Old"
23:19 "We Got One Life, and I Wanted to Be Happy Doing What I Love"
23:19 Heart Like a Truck: The Breakthrough Single
23:42 Paying It Forward: "I Want the Little Girls and Boys to Know This Was Not Overnight"
24:03 "Things Might Not Happen When You Want Them To, But They're Gonna Happen How They're Supposed To"
24:42 Cowgirl of the Night: "I Will Probably Still Be Crowning Somebody at 80 Years Old"
25:03 "I Am Beautiful. I Am Talented."
25:15 Scanning the Crowd: "What You Say to Yourself Is Very Important"
25:39 "Practice What I Preach": Telling Little Girls They're Smart and Beautiful
25:59 Third Song: CCR, 'Looking Out My Back Door'
26:10 Meeting John Fogerty: "You Won't Believe Who I Sat By Tonight"
26:32 The One CD in Daddy's Truck: "If He Was Tapping His Boot, He Liked It"
26:53 Kinetic Energy and Coming Home: "He's Talking About Locking the Front Door"
27:07 Writing About Home When You're Not at Home: "We All Wanna Feel Like We're There"
27:24 "It's Just About Perspective": Seeing the World From That Point of View
27:52 "I Was in the Backseat Playing Air Guitar": CCR Seeping Into Her System
28:11 "A Good Time, Not a Long Time": Credence and Hippie Culture
28:32 Bell-Bottoms and Free Love: "I Would Always Wanna Be a Hippie for Halloween"
28:51 "People Coming Up to My Mama Saying Lainey Gives Off a Free Spirit"
29:09 "I Just Have Always Felt a Little Free-Spirited"
29:29 "Giants Doing Cartwheels": The Wildness Beyond the Window
30:13 Yellowstone, Grammys, and CMA Entertainer of the Year: "Since Taylor Swift"
30:31 Coming Home to Nashville: "Is Your Mind Still Racing?"
30:49 "My Mind Is Always Racing": ADHD and the Song 'Can't Sit Still'
31:14 Getting Centered: Riding Horses and Sitting on the Front Porch
31:40 "Doing All the Simple Things Is What Helps Me Get There"
32:00 "I Can Be the Best Version of the Artist That People Have Connected To"
32:10 The First Thing She Does After Tour: Snuggling French Bulldog Hippie Mae Wilson
32:19 Architectural Digest and the Bedroom Sanctuary: "You Gotta Unplug Every Now and Then"
32:41 "You Can't Keep Pouring Out From a Half-Empty Cup for Very Long"
33:00 Fourth Song: Brothers Osborne, 'I'm Not For Everyone'
33:24 Shared Producer Jay Joyce: Eric Church and Brothers Osborne Records
34:00 "The Music Was Telling a Story of Its Own While the Lyrics Were Telling Another"
34:16 "You Could Pay Attention to Either One": Parallel Lines and ADHD
34:32 Jay Joyce: "He Can Stir Stuff Up in a Little Pot and Breathe Life Into It"
34:57 "Leaning Into the Things That Make You You"
35:18 "People That Love Ya, Like Ya, Don't Give a Damn, and Hate Ya"
35:37 "I'm Not for Everyone": Not an F You — "That's Okay"
35:53 Social Media: "You Aren't What You Do"
36:14 "I Am a Singer, I Am a Songwriter" — But What If This Is Taken Away Tomorrow?
36:30 Identity and the Dream: "How Much of Lainey Wilson Is There in Lainey Wilson?"
36:48 "Save a Little Bit Over Here for Myself"
37:11 Daddy's Saying Revisited: "If You Tell All Your Business, You Ain't Got None"
37:32 "That's How I'm Gonna Wind Up on the Prayer List Back Home"
37:52 TJ Coming Out as Gay: "Is Country Becoming More Welcoming?"
38:18 "We Don't Have to Live the Same Life to Love Each Other"
38:44 Big Tent Country: "Everyone's Welcome in the Big Tent"
39:05 Being a Unifying Voice in a Divided World
39:23 "Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't": Actions Speak Louder Than Words
39:39 "I'm Like Scotch and Savin' Gold Bands"
40:01 Joyful and Uplifting Shows: "Country Can Be Sad, But Your Shows Are Really Happy"
40:21 "Manifest It. Fake It Till You Make It in the Best of Ways"
40:37 "Country Is Cool Again": The Netflix Documentary
40:55 Why Country Is Having a Big Moment: "I Don't Know Anybody Who Doesn't Love a Good Story"
41:41 "It Takes You Home. It Feels Family-Oriented."
42:01 Fifth and Final Song: Tim McGraw, 'Humble and Kind'
42:25 Written by Lori McKenna: Tim McGraw Grew Up Right Down the Road
42:53 "My Step-Grandmother Used to Babysit Him"
43:10 Tim Bringing Shows to Northeast Louisiana: "If He Did It, Maybe I Could Too"
43:35 "Hold the Door, Say Please, Say Thank You": A Blueprint for Staying Grounded
44:04 "Words to Live By": Lori McKenna Wrote It to Her Children
44:10 "I Haven't Met Him Just Yet": Sharing Headphones With Her Sister
44:28 "We'd Fight Over Them": Dance Routines on the Gravel Driveway
44:47 Hometown Hero: "This Guy Is From Here and He Did It"
45:09 Writing a Letter to Tim McGraw at 18: "All I Need Is an Opportunity"
45:26 "Maybe He Read It and Was Scared of the Power of Lainey"
45:45 Drawing the Line: Humble and Kind and Things a Man Ought to Know
46:09 "Country Music Raised Me": Reba, Vince Gill, and Tim McGraw
46:27 Writing About What Mom and Daddy Taught Her: "What's Right Is Right"
46:51 What Would Dolly Do?
47:07 Mama Meeting Dolly: "You're Like My Sister"
47:27 "Do You Have a Good Manager? Well, Is He an Asshole?"
47:48 Singing With Dolly: "Terrifying, Especially When She's Watching You"
48:06 "If Dolly Parton Believes in Me, Then I'm Fine"
48:31 What Would Little Lainey Think? "She'd Be Very Proud"
48:49 "I Didn't Know I'd Be in Australia Playing Double Arena Shows"
49:13 New Album, New Adventure: "Showing a Different Side and Pushing the Boundaries"
49:36 "You've Remained Incredibly Humble and Kind"
49:54 "This Is Not About Me": Lainey and Zan's Thank You
50:10 "Hold the Door, Say Please, Say Thank You"
50:51 Zan's Wrap-Up: "I Could Listen to Her Speak All Day Long"
51:11 Watch Take 5 With Shania Twain on ABC iview
51:22 Next Time: Genesis Owusu
51:58 From Ghana to Canberra: "We Don't Have Time for the Honey and the Dress-Ups"
52:21 Season 5 of Take 5 With Zan Rowe. Stream on ABC iview
This episode was filmed for Season 5 of Take 5 with Zan Rowe on ABC TV and ABC iview. You can stream the whole season on ABC iview now.
Watch this episode of Take 5 on ABC iview
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/take-5-with-zan-rowe 
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