‘Tequila and Cigarettes and Everything Else’

Lainey Wilson came to The Late Show on Wednesday night (Sept. 24) to, in her words, talk about “peace, love and cowboys.” In her first proper sit-down with host Stephen Colbert, the country star talked about being from Baskin, La., a town she joked bumped down to 156 residents after she left.

“That’s not a small town, that’s a big family,” Colbert said. Wilson described getting the bug to get try country music because it was the lingua franca of her tiny town, where, she explained, “when you’re from a town of 157, you live your live on the edge of your seat waiting on the next story.”

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That’s why it was no surprise that she wrote her first song at nine-years-old after feeling like the voices on the radio were “speaking to me.” Wilson — known for her eye-catching ensembles, wore a suede patchwork suit and matching brown hat for the appearance — joked that her subject matter at the time was totally normal for a fourth grader: “tequila and cigarettes and everything else.” She also made her first $20 at that age singing at the grand opening of a local convenience store, a bill her dad still has framed at home.

That wasn’t her only gig as a kid. She said she and her sister were also rodeo “flag girls,” with Wilson doing double-duty by singing the National Anthem on horseback at the professional rodeo events.

Wilson brought her signature fashion flare to a performance later in the show as well, wearing a belly-baring pink jumpsuit with a large bejeweled belt, white cowboy hat and a pink and white flowing cape as she rambled through “Somewhere Over Laredo” from the deluxe edition of her Whirlwind album. The song opened with a close-up of an old-fashioned wooden TV console, with Wilson singing the moving ballad in black and white before the tempo picked up and she was in full technicolor, crooning about flying over Laredo and “dreaming about those rodeo nights.”

Watch Wilson on the Late Show below.