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Lainey Wilson Recalls Years Of Living In Camper, Says Success Is Helping Her Relax

Lainey Wilson: "I moved to Nashville to make history and show a lot of the people who were raised like me, who, coming from tiny little towns, that you can do anything you set your mind to."

Lainey Wilson may have just charted two No. 1 songs – "Things A Man Oughta Know" and the Cole Swindell duet "Never Say Never" – but she vividly remembers having no success. Wilson moved to Nashville from her native Louisiana and lived in her camper trailer for the first three years she was in town.

"I had some of the darkest days of my entire life in that camper," Wilson told Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country. "It would be 20 degrees outside, my furnace wasn't working, and I would just wrap up in jackets. I could see my breath in the camper, and I thought, just to myself, 'Lord, I hope this is temporary. I hope this is temporary because it's hard.' I knew deep in my heart that it truly was only preparing me, too. I think it's been the Lord's way of showing me, 'Hey, look, this route ain't going to be easy. It ain't going to be what you thought it was going to be, but I'm preparing you to be able to say more, to share more.'"

Wilson has plenty to say now. Her third song, "Heart Like a Truck," is out now, and she said that she and her co-writers had to dig deep and rewrite the song to make it the emotional, anthemic powerhouse that fans hear on country radio.

Lainey Wilson wrote, "Heart Like A Truck" with Dallas Wilson and Trannie Anderson.

"We started writing, and we had this more dug in groove; it was a little rocking," Wilson said. "As we got about 30 minutes into the song, we all three were on the same page about knowing that wasn't the right direction. If we were going to do this, we needed to really, really do it and be vulnerable, and talk about where I've been, but more importantly, about where I'm going."

She says the single is about finding freedom and strength.

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"It's about being okay with the dents and the bumps along the way," Wilson said. "That's what makes you, you. That's what builds character. There definitely are times when I'm like, 'Why in the world are these things happening to me like this?' I know at the end of the day, for me personally, it was to prepare me to be able to share certain things and share certain things with the world. I truly believe that."

Now that she's had some success, Wilson doesn't feel like she has to prove herself anymore.

"As a new chick on the block, you feel like you got a lot to prove, a lot to prove in the songwriting world," Wilson said. "Now I feel a little bit like, 'All right, we accomplished this. We can do it again. We've already proved ourself.' It put just enough fire underneath me to just want to do it again. I moved to Nashville to make history and show a lot of the people who were raised like me, who, coming from tiny little towns, that you can do anything you set your mind to. Don't let anybody tell you no. Go get the dang thing."

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