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 Her
