“I think he mighta finally nailed it.”
Lainey Wilson wrote that on Instagram this week, under a new video of her husband dancing right beside her.
The husband is Devlin “Duck” Hodges, a former NFL quarterback. The dance goes with “Phone, Keys, Wallet,” the single Lainey made with John Mayer. In the clip, Holler reports, she calls Duck over and sings the hook herself. Then she sings it faster each time around while he tries to keep up.
It has been a long road to “nailed it.” Back in July, Country Rebel wrote up their first try, when Duck announced that he would be the one teaching her. He said they needed “actual music.” Lainey joked that she “is the music.”
In September she tried teaching him to sing the song. “I can’t do it,” Duck said, per Country Now. “Yes, you can. I’ll do it with you,” Lainey told him. He got about halfway through one line, started laughing and offered another plan: “Look, I’m a whistler. Let me whistle it.”
The timing of the new video is good. Lainey hosts the 60th CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. It is her third year in a row as host, and she is up for Entertainer of the Year.
The two married on May 10 at Ruskin Cave in Dickson, Tenn. The teasing is older than the marriage, though. By Lainey’s account, it goes back to their very first night out.
That first date was in 2021. Duck told the “Like a Farmer” podcast last fall that they had dinner outside Nashville and then went to a bar with line dancing, iHeartCountry reported. He said he knew quickly that she was the one.
Lainey remembers another part of the evening. She told the story to Southern Living editor Sid Evans in the fall of 2025, when the two were engaged.
Duck is a champion duck caller, and Lainey liked that from the start. “World-champion duck caller, that’s what did it for me,” she said. Most people would figure that explains the name. She said it doesn’t.
The nickname came from football. Duck played quarterback at Samford University in Alabama, and Lainey said a coach there told him, “You remind me of one of my favorite quarterbacks ever, and his name was Duck.” He had a good season, and the whole team picked it up. “It’s Duck season; it’s Duck season!” they would say.
Lainey heard all of that across the table and decided she needed a bird of her own.
“On our first date, I told him that people call me Goose,” she said. “I was lying, but he fell for it.”
Nobody called her Goose. She made it up on the spot, and by her telling it worked better than the truth would have. “I think he was like, ‘Oh, I’m in love,'” she said.
She didn’t say how long she let him believe it. Duck hasn’t given his side of the Goose story in any interview we could find.
Southern Living filmed that visit at her farmhouse for its “Biscuits & Jam” podcast. The show’s own notes say she shares funny stories about Duck in it.
Lainey talks about Duck, family and home at her Nashville farmhouse
Duck may not sing, but he made it into her music anyway. “Kinda Love It” came out on Oct. 9, and Whiskey Riff says the song is about him. He is in the video too, riding a four-wheeler with Lainey around their Tennessee property.
Lainey and Duck ride a four-wheeler in her “Kinda Love It” video
After the whistling in September, Duck said a duck call is as close to music as he gets. Five years on from that first date, the Duck is real and the Goose never was. He married her anyway.