Ella Langley has heard plenty of people singing “Choosin’ Texas” during its record-breaking run, but Matthew McConaughey’s bluegrass version appears to have caught her completely off guard.
The Oscar winner performed Langley’s hit during the Aug. 12 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, joining folk group The Last Bison with a mandolin while Fallon played washboard.
The performance quickly reached Langley, who responded directly to a clip posted on Instagram.
“Choosin’ Texas” is in the middle of a historic Billboard run, while McConaughey is promoting The Rivals of Amziah King, a new film in which he plays a bluegrass musician and performs on the mandolin himself.
The Fallon Performance Started With an Audience Suggestion
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The unusual collaboration came from The Tonight Show‘s Audience Suggestion Box segment. Fallon read a viewer request combining two seemingly unrelated things.
“I love that song ‘Choosin’ Texas’ by Ella Langley,” Fallon read from the suggestion. “And I’m really excited to see Matthew McConaughey’s new movie The Rivals of Amziah King, where he performs in a bluegrass band. If there was only a way to combine those things, that would be a dream come true.”
“This is The Tonight Show, where dreams become reality,” Fallon replied. The curtain then opened to reveal McConaughey holding a mandolin alongside The Last Bison. Fallon joined them on washboard as the musicians launched into a roots-heavy bluegrass version of Langley’s hit.
Rolling Stone described the performance as a loose, homespun reinvention of the song, with acoustic guitar, banjo, bass and mandolin giving the country hit a distinctly different sound. Langley quickly gave the cover her approval. In addition to commenting “Omg” on the performance online, she reposted it to her Instagram Stories with the message, “I may never recover from this.”
‘Choosin’ Texas’ Has Spent 17 Weeks at No. 1
McConaughey happened to cover the song during one of the biggest stretches of Langley’s career. “Choosin’ Texas” has spent 17 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, according to Billboard.
That run makes it the longest-leading non-holiday Hot 100 No. 1 by a solo woman, moving beyond the 14-week reigns of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together.” At 17 weeks, “Choosin’ Texas” also holds the fourth-longest No. 1 run in the Hot 100’s history.
Langley co-wrote the song with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick and JoyBeth Taylor. It appears on her second studio album, Dandelion, and its repeated references to the Lone Star State made Texas native McConaughey an especially fitting person to reinterpret it.
McConaughey Learned Mandolin for ‘The Rivals of Amziah King’
McConaughey’s mandolin playing on The Tonight Show was not simply a prop for the sketch. In The Rivals of Amziah King, he plays Amziah King, a beekeeper and musician in rural Oklahoma who leads a bluegrass-playing group while running a honey business.
McConaughey told PEOPLE that he spent months learning to play the instrument and sing for the movie. Even after that preparation, he said performing both skills simultaneously remained challenging. The film also gave him a direct musical connection with The Last Bison.
A recently released version of “Quill,” originally recorded by The Last Bison, features McConaughey and the band’s Ben Hardesty on vocals, with McConaughey playing mandolin. Owen Teague performs violin, while Miranda Zickler, Andrea Pister and McConaughey’s co-star Angelina LookingGlass also appear on the recording. PEOPLE reported that Lakeshore Records released “Quill” on Aug. 7 as part of the film’s soundtrack.
The Last Bison’s Connection to the Movie Runs Deeper Than Fallon
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The group’s music appears in The Rivals of Amziah King, including “Quill,” while Hardesty also appears in the film. The movie centers on Amziah, a musically gifted Oklahoma honey maker whose estranged former foster daughter returns and becomes part of his family business just as rivals threaten what he has built.
Black Bear Pictures’ official credits list Andrew Patterson as director and James Montague as the screenwriter. McConaughey stars alongside Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Scott Shepherd, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, Jake Horowitz and Kurt Russell. The Rivals of Amziah King begins its theatrical release on Aug. 14.