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Lainey Wilson delivered a fierce live performance of her latest single, “Wildflowers and Wild Horses,” from her award-winning sophomore album on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday night (December 12).
Host Jimmy Kimmel introduced the reigning CMA Awards Entertainer of the Year to the stage, noting that the song she performed, from Bell Bottom Country, is on track included on the Grammy Award-nominated record. Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country — titled as a nod to her signature style — is up for Best Country Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards. She’s also nominated in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance category for her collaboration with Jelly Roll, “Save Me.”
Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country also won the Album of the Year honor at the 57th CMA Awards last month in Nashville, Tennessee. That’s where she delivered a fiery performance of “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.”
“I'm five generations of blazing a trail/ Through barbed wire valleys and overgrown dells/ I’m barefoot and bareback and born tough as nails/ Whoa, whoa, whoa/ I’m four-fifths of reckless and one-fifth of jack/ I push like a daisy through old sidewalk cracks/ Yeah, my kinda crazy's still running its courses with/ Wildflowers and wild horses”
“The truth is, I knew this would happen. I knew that I would be here,” Wilson said backstage at Bridgestone Arena that night, when asked about her success after striving for about 12 years in Nashville to make it to this point, including a period of time living in her camper trailer. “I just, I feel like sometimes you gotta pretend. You gotta put yourself in the shoes of things that you’re not so one day you can become what you wanna be and what you knew that you could be, and that’s what I’d do, those lonely nights in my camper trailer out in West Nashville. I was envisioning myself being here. I was waiting outside of Bridgestone to get a little wristband so I could maybe be in the pit and feel like I was a part of this industry. I knew it. I knew it with every fiber of my being. And that sounds wild, but it’s true. And I think a lot of people around me…they knew it too. I’ve always had kind of a weird sense of peace about it. But I do feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Bell Bottom Country is Wilson’s latest full-length project, which released in 2022. It also includes smash-hit singers “Heart Like A Truck” and “Watermelon Moonshine,” in addition to “Hold My Halo,” “Hillbilly Hippie,” a cover of “What’s Up (What’s Going On)” and other fan-favorite tracks. Wilson added two new songs to the original 14-track project — “New Friends” and “Smell Like Smoke” — following her acting debut in Yellowstone. She shared with iHeartCountry that although it can be “really scary” to release her original music, into the world, “it feels really nice to just be embraced.”
“It's cool to be able to write your story and your truth and get vulnerable and have people appreciate that. …The truth is, I mean, preparing for something like that is really scary,” Wilson said in a recent interview with iHeartCountry, when asked what it’s like to observe how her fans receive her music after spending so much time writing and recording it. “You're like, 'well, I mean, all I can do is do what I do and hope that folks like it.' But it seems like I just keep on getting surprised, and people are finding little pieces in each song to connect to and relate to. And a lot of people have shared their stories with me on why they love each song and why it means something different to them. And that's what country music's about. It's about making people feel like they're not alone. And I've known from a very early age that I was supposed to be doing this, and it feels really nice to just be embraced.”