The song, a duet with Riley Green, went on to be the star's breakthrough single
Credit: Theo Von/YouTube
NEED TO KNOW
Key Takeaways
- Ella Langley fought her label to keep the spoken verses in her hit song “You Look Like You Love Me”
- The song became her breakthrough hit, topping country charts and winning multiple CMA and ACM awards
- Langley’s second album Dandelion reflects her confidence and artistic growth following her recent success
Ella Langley always believed in her song “You Look Like You Love Me” — but for a while, she was the only one.
The country star, 26, opened up about the hit song’s origins on the This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast, and revealed that she had to stand her ground in order to record it the way she wanted.
“Everyone told me that song was not going to work. They were all like, ‘What?’” she said on Tuesday, April 7. “After we cut it, [the label] was like, ‘We really think you need to go back in and sing these verses.’ I was like, ‘I’m not singing it.’ And they were like, ‘You need to sing it.’”
The song, a duet with Riley Green, begins with Langley speaking the first verse, a move that harkens back to classic country songs of yore. She then sings the chorus before Green joins in to speak the second verse.
“I just fought ‘em really hard on it,” Langley said. “They were like, ‘This is going to be the worst-performing song on the record.’”
Sticking to her gut eventually paid off for Langley, as “You Look Like You Love Me” went on to be the star’s breakthrough hit upon its release in June 2024.
It topped the country charts, marked Langley’s first entry onto the Billboard Hot 100, and won a number of awards, including Musical Event at the 2024 CMA Awards, plus Single of the Year, Visual Media of the Year and Music Event of the Year at the 2025 ACM Awards.
Credit: Terry Wyatt/WireImage
“I didn’t know what it was gonna do, but I believed that it was different,” Langley told Von. “I believed it was something that made me smile and I enjoyed singing it and like I said, once I put my mind to something, if I go in and cut something, it’s because I believe in it.”
The song, written by Langley, Green and Aaron Raitiere, is featured on Langley’s debut studio album Hungover, which came out in August 2024.
She joked to PEOPLE in November 2024 that she and her co-writers “were laughing thinking this might cause some marriages, maybe some divorces, and definitely some children.”
"This song happened so organically," she said. "Riley being on the song and writing his verse is the same thing. Everything happened the way it was supposed to and I'm just really grateful to be here [at the CMA Awards] tonight."
Her second album Dandelion is set for release on April 10. She told Audacy’s Superstar Power Hour that the record was born from the newfound sense of confidence Langley has following her breakout few years.
“I’m not guessing anymore. I’m not chasing anything. I’m not trying to be anything,” she said. “This record is exactly what I wanted out of it and it is just me, and I feel like this is gonna be my record where everyone’s gonna be like, ‘That’s where the artistry clicked for her.’”
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