Old Town Road trivia: 65 facts about the song that has taken America by storm!

Old Town Road is now the song with the most weeks atop Billboard Hot 100. And it doesn’t seem to slow down any time soon!

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about this song!

“Old Town Road” is a song by American rapper Lil Nas X
It was initially released independently on December 3, 2018
And gained popularity on social video sharing app TikTok
As a result, Lil Nas X was signed to Columbia Records
Which now distributes the single
The song was produced by YoungKio
It features a sample of the instrumental piece “34 Ghosts IV” by Nine Inch Nails
The band members receiving songwriting and production credits
It was included alongside its remix on Lil Nas X’s debut EP, 7
“Old Town Road” has been officially remixed four times
Featuring a different array of guest artists including Billy Ray Cyrus, Diplo, Young Thug, Mason Ramsey and RM
In March 2019, the song reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart
Before the magazine disqualified it from being included on the chart on grounds that it did not fit the country genre
Sparking a debate on the definition of the genre
Though the song was not re-entered onto the overall country charts, both the original version of the song and the remix featuring Cyrus eventually peaked at number one on the flagship Billboard chart, the Hot 100
For a record-breaking seventeen consecutive weeks
The song was the first-ever number-one song on the Rolling Stone Top 100 chart
Internationally, one or more versions of “Old Town Road” have topped the national singles charts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom
It charted within the top ten in various other markets
Country rap, and its subgenre, country trap, emerged onto the mainstream following American rapper Young Thug’s experimental mixtape Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017)
Lil Nas X has cited Young Thug as a pioneer of the country trap genre
In May 2018, Lil Tracy and Lil Uzi Vert reignited the trend with their country rap single “Like a Farmer (Remix)”
In 2018, Lil Nas X dropped out of college to pursue a musical career
But was discouraged by his parents
He moved in with his sister
Spending time promoting his music on the Internet while getting just three hours of sleep each night
Lil Nas X began writing “Old Town Road” after he felt like he was “out of options”
Lil Nas X says his sister’s and parents’ frustration inspired the song’s chorus, “can’t nobody tell me nothing”
Within the month of writing it, Lil Nas X chose to spin the song’s meaning so that the “old town road” would be a symbol of success
Dutch record producer YoungKio produced the beat a year prior to the song’s release
He uploaded it to his online store for selling beats
He sampled Nine Inch Nails’ track “34 Ghosts IV” and kept the song intact instead of chopping it as a challenge to himself
Saying he “didn’t really have any country thoughts about it”
He had never heard of Nine Inch Nails prior to stumbling upon “34 Ghosts IV”
Lil Nas X bought the beat from YoungKio for $30
But since purchases on his online store were anonymous, YoungKio didn’t know the song was purchased by Lil Nas X
Until he saw it in an Instagram meme in December 2018
“Old Town Road” has been variously described by publications as a country rap, country, trap or Southern hip hop song
Lil Nas X stated that he regards it as a “country trap” song
Produced by YoungKio, “Old Town Road” samples Nine Inch Nails’ track “34 Ghosts IV” from their sixth studio album Ghosts I–IV (2008)
The song prominently features the playing of a banjo along with trap-style Roland TR-808 drums and bass throughout
It has been compared to Lil Tracy’s 2018 single “Like a Farmer”, which was later remixed by Lil Uzi Vert
The song is composed in the key of B major with a chord progression of G♯7-Badd9-F♯sus4-E6
It has an approximate tempo of 68 beats per minute
In the United States, the original version of “Old Town Road” ascended to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week ending April 4, 2019
At one minute and fifty-three seconds in length, it became the shortest number-one single since “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” by Herman’s Hermits in 1965
And the fifth-shortest in the history of the chart
The following week, it and the newly-released remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus received a combined 143 million streams
Surpassing Drake’s “In My Feelings”
Which in 2018 had amassed 116.2 million in the same period
It became the song with the highest single-week streaming figure in the country
“Old Town Road” continued to exceed 100 million streams in each of the eight following weeks
As of June 2019 is responsible for the three highest weekly U.S. streaming totals in the history of digital music
As well as nine of the eleven highest overall
The song has been certified triple Platinum by the RIAA
Indicating sales of three million copies or more in the U.S
“Old Town Road” has topped the Hot 100 for seventeen consecutive weeks as of July 2019
Its overall run at number one is the longest in chart history
Surpassing the previous record of sixteen weeks achieved by both “One Sweet Day”, by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men (1995–96), and “Despacito”, by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber (2017)
In accordance with its policies, Billboard assigns a single position to “Old Town Road” on the Hot 100
Billboard combines the performance figures of every released version of the song determined to be sufficiently similar to the original
As a result, the entirety of its chart run is credited solely to the remix featuring Cyrus
The music video for the remix with Billy Ray Cyrus was released on May 17, 2019
It has guest appearances from Chris Rock, Haha Davis, Rico Nasty, Diplo, Jozzy, Young Kio, and Vince Staples
The music video in question involves Lil Nas X and Cyrus characters who are cowboys transported from 1889 during the Wild West to present day 2019 in the titular town of Old Town Road where they interact with the locals