Lainey Wilson Performs a Cinematic ‘Wildflowers and Wild Horses’ at 2023 CMAs

Lainey Wilson delivered a triumphant performance of “Wildflowers and Wild Horses” during Wednesday night’s CMA Awards in Nashville. A track off her Album of the Year-contending Bell Bottom Country, the cinematic song was written by Wilson with Trannie Anderson and Paul Sikes and delivers a message of perseverance and freedom via the imagery of the American West.

Onstage at the Bridgestone Arena, Wilson performed “Wildflowers and Wild Horses” with a highly stylized set: there was chaparral onstage, barbed wire, and a ring of fire. There were also heavy Chris LeDoux vibes, both in the lyrics of the song and in the eerie Big Sky Country imagery that framed Wilson.

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Wilson came into the CMA Awards as the year’s most nominated artist, with nine total, including her first ever Entertainer of the Year nomination. She is also up for Female Vocalist of the Year, Album, and a pair of nominations for “Heart Like a Truck.” She received two Musical Event of the Year nominations too, one for “Wait in the Truck,” a tale of spousal abuse and revenge that she recorded with Hardy, and the other for “Save Me,” her collab with Jelly Roll.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Wilson talked about the success of her two “truck” songs. “It’s about taking that idea and flipping it on its head. I want to write things that people can relate to, and a lot of folks who listen to country music can relate to trucks,” she said. “But when it comes to ‘Wait in the Truck’ that I got to do with Hardy, it gave me an opportunity to be, like, ‘Man, this is something that a lot of people go through, that a lot of folks don’t want to talk about. But it happens behind closed doors.’ I will never be able to feel what those people have felt, but I did want to take some of that weight and put it on my shoulders.”

Last month, Wilson, a native of Baskin, Louisiana, announced her headlining 2024 Country’s Cool Again Tour, a summer-and-fall run of amphitheaters that kicks off May 31 in Nashville and wraps up with a homecoming show in Monroe, Louisiana, in November.

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