When Apple Music’s editors sat down to pick the best country songs of 2026, Ella Langley’s “Be Her” landed at the very top of the list.
They didn’t stop there, either. In their write-up, the editors said, “This year, there was no bigger story than the runaway success of Ella Langley.”
That’s quite a thing to have written about you.
If you’re just catching up, Ella is a country singer from Alabama who has had a whirlwind run. She’s up for nine CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov 18, more than anyone else. “Be Her” alone is up for Single of the Year and Song of the Year. Just to be clear, the top spot here is on an Apple Music editors’ playlist, not a sales chart, but it’s a big honor all the same.
Here’s the song Apple Music put first, so you can hear what all the fuss is about.
Ella Langley’s official video for “Be Her”
For all that success, Ella’s roots are about as down-home as they come. She was homeschooled until 6th grade. After that, she went to the same school her dad went to and graduated with 32 kids.
Her dad is Jason Langley, a business owner, and her mom is Heather. And when it comes to her dad, Ella has shared one detail that every family will recognize.
It came up on Theo Von’s podcast, “This Past Weekend.” On episode #651, the two of them got onto the subject of Southern chain restaurants, the kind of places a lot of us grew up eating at after church or on a Friday night. When Theo asked her about it, she didn’t pick just one.
“Not really,” Ella said. “I mean, a lot of chains, like I said, the Shoney’s. My dad loves a buffet.”
There it is. A man who loves a buffet.
And it doesn’t have to be a fancy one. In Ella’s words, “Oh, any buffet.” But there’s one rule. The meal always finishes in the same spot, at the soft serve machine. As she put it, “the soft serve ice cream you got to get at the end.”
If you’ve ever stood at one of those machines with a cone in your hand, you know the game. Ella summed it up: “How big can you make your own ice cream cone?”
Anybody who has watched a grown man try to stack one a little too high knows how much fun that part is.
The restaurant talk didn’t end there. In this clip from the same conversation, Ella and Theo get into Waffle House, another Southern favorite that a lot of readers will know well.
Ella Langley and Theo Von move on to Waffle House stories
It’s a nice picture to keep in mind as Ella heads toward the CMAs on Nov 18. The playlists and the nominations keep piling up for her. Her dad’s idea of a great meal out, the way Ella tells it, still comes with a soft serve cone at the end.