When Little Nas X wrote “Old Town Road” he had no way of knowing that it would catapult his career and smash the record for longest-running No. 1 song on Billboard Hot 100. In fact, as he recently shared with Billboard’s “How It Went Down,” at the time he didn’t even know where he’d spend the next night, having been booted out by his sister!
According to Lil Nas X, he wrote the song during his first summer back from college while he was supposed to be studying for a math exam he needed to take again after failing the first time. Instead, he moved in with his sister and spent his time experimenting with music.
He was getting positive feedback on the Internet for his work, which inspired him to keep pursuing a career in music. But it was then that his sister became unsatisfied with the arrangement and asked him to move out.
You can hear Lil Nas X’s sentiments of that time recorded in the line from the song: “I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road/ I’m gonna ride till I can’t no more.”
“It kind of in a way relates to my situation of what I wanted to do at the moment, which is just run away from life in a way,” he explained.
