Little Big Town’s ‘Girl Crush’ Sets All-Time Chart Record

Little Big Town's latest single, "Girl Crush," has overcome a difficult start to set a new record for the most consecutive weeks a country single has ever spent at No. 1.

The song just marked its eleventh straight week at the top of Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, shattering a record that had stood since 1959, when the Browns' "Three Bells" spent 10 weeks at No. 1.

The song was the subject of some controversy after it was released, after a report claimed it was being dropped from rotation at country stations because listeners were accusing it of "promoting the gay agenda" with its lyrics, which some fans misunderstood to be about a lesbian fixation. A subsequent report claimed that controversy was mostly manufactured, but the resulting attention, as well as several high-value TV performances, may have ultimately helped the song gain traction.

Songwriter Lori McKenna says the song nearly didn't get written. When she first proposed the idea to co-writer Liz Rose, she hated it off the bat.

"She said, 'Lori, shut it down. We're not writing a song called 'Girl Crush'" she tells Rolling Stone Country. "She didn't even explain, she just hated it."

Fortunately, Hillary Lindsey liked the idea, and once she played the first verse, Rose instantly changed her mind. "So we wrote it pretty quickly. And because Liz hated it so much at first, we thought nobody was going to like the song but us, so we weren't careful," McKenna adds. "It's good for your songwriting soul to write a song that's just for you and isn't commercial."

Though they're celebrating the biggest success of their career, LBT are also going through a rough patch right now. The group are currently off the road while singer Jimi Westbrook recovers from surgery to remove a polyp from his vocal cords.

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