Songs Ranked Worst to Best

When breaking off a relationship, there’s a stark difference between letting someone down easy and with respect — and raking one’s heart over the coals. In this song, Wilson sings of the sting of experiencing the latter, musing that her ex’s method of ripping apart the relationship is an extraordinarily low blow. “Even the devil don’t go there/ The way you did me last night,” she sings. For extra measure, the song’s bridge laces in references to other “devilish” country songs, from Josh Turner’s “Long Black Train,” Joe Nichols’ “Brokenheartsville” and The Charlie Daniels Band’s “Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

On the pulsating title track written with her frequent collaborators Trannie Anderson and Dallas Wilson (collectively known as The Heart Wranglers), Wilson sings of traveling solo, a lone wolf who formed her own pack, moving fast. But her life improves exponentially when she finds her mate. He doesn’t slow the whirlwind; rather he jumps in and joins the fray. “Yeah, this funnel wouldn’t be near as fun without you spinning ’round,” she sings. The song isn’t as dynamic as many others on the album, but feels deeply personal and reflective of what Wilson’s life has been like the past few years. 

Earlier this year, Wilson began including this track in her concert sets, and it marks a differentiation point for the singer, who has rarely included straightforward love songs in her repertoire. One of the most forthright love songs on the album, sultry R&B notes intro this swaying romantic track, as she sings about slowing down life’s whirlwind for a few treasured moments with a loved one. There’s no preference for time or place — both rural country roads or views of New York City skylines work just fine as long as she’s with her love. Wilson wrote this with Aaron Raitiere and Jon Decious.

“Everybody want to be a cowboy/ Drive a Jon boat/ Whip a John Deere,”  Wilson declares with a sly wink and tongue firmly planted in cheek toward all those boarding the country train now that it’s hip to like country in this twangy, loping tale. This would work as a great live opener, especially with the dazzling guitar break and “cool, cool, cool, cool, country’s cool again” repeating refrain.

A post-breakup musing directed at an ex-lover, Wilson ponders how a myriad of items don’t operate without their essential counterparts — old trucks don’t run without gas and flat tires won’t roll. And yet, the heart she thought would stop when their romance dissolved, continues on. “Still pumping, still running, still dreaming,” Wilson sings, and as she rounds into the final chorus, her voice sounds wounded yet determined, the heart-cracking hurt flows through, and it marks one of the most heartfelt ballads on the project, while feeling at moments like a precursor to her hit “Heart Like a Truck.”

Wilson’s ready to settle down on this lighthearted, genial midtempo ode to wedded bliss. “They ain’t even hatched yet, but my eggs are in one basket,” she sings when it comes to her hopes. Those listening closely will love the end when she impishly drops in a cheeky reference to her boyfriend, Devlin “Duck” Hodges, as she literally counts chickens and he’s hopefully picking up on the hints. It’s a sweet, endearing tune.

A decade ago, Wilson was a Nashville newcomer with just dreams and songs. Though she’s now the reigning CMA and ACM entertainer of the year, she remembers well the years of dreaming, planning, and grueling hours, all while not being entirely certain if that work would pay off–or as she sings, “hard to tell how far you are from the start and the finish line.” In another Heart Wranglers song, she chronicles her own journey of how she spun heartbreak into hit records–and in the process, this trio crafts a song of deep understanding and encouragement to those still in the lengthy, hazy middle ground that lies between the spark of a dream and the realization of one.

In the rollicking album opener, Wilson drops no fewer than 10 George Jones song titles and references, as she sings about the futility in trying to keep up with the Possum. With its chugging percussion, fuzzy, electric guitar work and Wilson’s slurry, slowed-down ending, the groove is fierce on this one. Written with Josh Kear and Wyatt McCubbin.

Wilson offers a bit of advice for anyone looking for a steady, long-term romance with a reliable lover: call a cowboy. Against instrumentation that recalls the wilds of a frontier, she catalogs all benefits of taking up with a cowboy, a rock-solid, rugged guy who can be counted on to build a fire, pick a wildflower, break in a wild horse and handle a four-wheel drive with ease. “Tried and true like the grit in his voice,” she sings, as Wilson’s own vocal flits and soars over the melody, culminating in a piercing, commanding high note that reminds listeners that though Wilson mostly leans on conversational-style singing, she’s got plenty of vocal firepower.

The first single from Whirlwind is a full-tilt, cannon blast about two ships that pass in the night, but when they reunite, it’s fireworks. The protagonist is on the road, a “white line running down a dream on a long lost highway” playing one-night stands and pocketing money, anticipating when she can be in her lover’s arms, but reveling in the fact that her fans “are singing along to all them songs I wrote about you.” The song has reached No. 14 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.

This ballad marks one of the most hard-hitting yet triumphant songs on the album. This story song depicts a teacher giving her kindergarten students an assignment to draw their homes. One student’s drawing highlights a scene with a car, a sibling playing with a puppy, and their smiling mother—but when it comes time to draw his father, the boy asks his teacher for a “whiskey-colored” crayon to complete the picture. That simple drawing becomes a catalyst for change in his father’s life. Detailed without being cloying, this track—written by Wilson, Josh Kear and Wyatt McCubbin—is a heart-tugger.

The lone duet on the album is a midtempo acoustic shuffler with Wilson and Lambert’s voices wrapping around each other beautifully in this tale about a woman who doesn’t need her man to try to restrain her, but just to love her and give her freedom — that’s the way to ensure she will come home. The song turns autobiographical when Wilson, who wrote it with Lambert and Luke Dick, sings, “Come a long way since I left Louisiana/ My dream tied on like a red bandana.” A full album of Wilson and Lambert songs with this spare instrumentation would be very welcome indeed. Maybe their version of Lambert and Jon Randall’s The Marfa Tapes.

“I got the ring/ He got the finger,” Wilson sings on the funkiest track on the album.

Her slinky, foreboding spoken-word lyricism sparks with a crash of rock guitars on this track, which further elevates her status as a fierce, singular artist and one who’s an encourager and champion for her fellow woman. In this track, she weaves a tale of a woman headed to exchange vows with her lover, until she realizes he hasn’t been faithful. Instead of wallowing in pain, she dumps the guy and keeps the ring. She also sneaks in a tribute to the women who “had the balls to walk away from Earl,” slyly sneaking in a reference to “Earl,” a character created by celebrated songwriter Dennis Linde, and who appears in Linde’s songs including The Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” and Sammy Kershaw’s “Queen of My Double Wide Trailer.” This is a scorching anthem for all the girls who “lost your man but you took the bling bling.” Wilson wrote the song with Aaron Raitiere, Jon Decious and Marty Dodson.

A five-minute anthem that allows Wilson her biggest chance on the album to stretch out musically. She’s in a bar throwing back beers, feeling “empty, cold and blue” as she “stares at the mountains,” presumably on the beer can (could a Coors Light endorsement be in the offing? She already linked with them for a Super Bowl ad). The moody, organ-filled track, written by Trannie Anderson, Jason Nix, Kasey Tyndall and Wilson, shifts tempos as she moves from resignation to acceptance, singing, “I can’t move a mountain but I can sure as hell move on.” The relatively complex song could be a good roadmap for where Wilson goes next, as it’s clear that no style is beyond her reach.