Lainey Wilson couldn’t have chosen a more fitting title for her fifth studio album. The wildly beloved country singer-songwriter’s rise to fame has surely been a whirlwind, catapulting the small-town Louisiana native from relative obscurity to stardom in just a few short years. That success was not earned overnight, though, as Wilson had put in nearly a decade of work before breaking out with Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ in 2021. “I felt like my life was changing at 190 miles an hour and I was just trying to keep one foot on the ground,” Wilson tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “But I think those 10 years of nothing happening for me prepared me for my life changing super fast.” Whirlwind is Wilson at the height of her powers, mixing pop, rock and soul into her already inimitable brand of traditionally informed country. Highlights include the title track, a light and groovy celebration of reckless love, and “Devil Don’t Go There”, a heartbreak ballad that lets Wilson lean into the emotive side of her versatile voice. The Miranda Lambert duet “Good Horses” connects two generations of country spitfires, with dusky production to emphasise the singers’ undeniable vocal chemistry. Wilson’s band sounds better than ever, too, which she attributes to years spent touring relentlessly and working toward a shared dream. “They are ride or die,” she says. “I mean, these guys are the ones that ate dirt with me. And I think it’s really important to keep the people close that you ate dirt with. They know you, they know how bad you want it. They want it just as bad. They love you for you. They sacrifice so much to be out there on the road with you.” Below, Wilson gives insight into a few key tracks. “Whirlwind” “I finally found a guy that gives me a run for my money. And he’s my biggest cheerleader. He’s just a good person. And he knows how important chasing down a dream is, because even when he was a little boy, football was his life. He did it and he tried out for the Steelers and made the team. And so he achieved what he set out to do. And so he knows. We met at a time where he was still playing with them, but then it all changed. So it was weird. It was like his life was changing as my life was changing and we were going different directions. So, yeah, life for us is a whirlwind.” “Middle of It” “We had actually just got nominated for Entertainer of the Year for the CMAs. And I had not been at my house in Nashville, and I didn’t have furniture in my house for months. We don’t need a couch, we’re not here. So my friends The Heart Wranglers came over and they just said, ‘Let’s do a heart check.’ And they’re like, ‘What’s going on? Where are you at? How you feel? Where’s your head?’ I sat on the floor and I just said, ‘I feel like I’m just smack-dab in the middle of it. It’s a blur to me where it started, where it’s going to end up. I just can’t hardly tell.’ And then we just started talking about how that’s really what all this is about anyway. That’s the beauty of it.” “Whiskey Colored Crayon” “That song actually came from a word exercise that my co-writer [Josh Kear] did. I’ll probably get this wrong, but every morning before he writes songs, he writes a list of things. And say the first list that he wrote was ‘things that I hate’ and maybe it’s lettuce or greens or whisky or whatever. And then he writes a list of random things, things that you can use to create. He mix-mashed these words and he was like, ‘Well, I’ve got this whisky-coloured crayon,’ and we got to thinking about the storyline of this. And we came up with, ‘Okay, let’s think about a young student, the coloured crayon part. Okay, and how could we tell a story about a little boy who goes through some things at home that most people don’t know about?’ We created the story. And for me, again, putting myself into the shoes of somebody else takes me out of my mess for a minute and gives me a fresh and new perspective. And I left that songwriting session, after we told this story, just feeling grateful.”