Lainey Wilson knows that “Never Say Never” — her new duet with Cole Swindell — couldn’t be more different than her debut release to country radio, the chart-topping ballad “Things a Man Oughta Know.”

But when she first heard it, after Cole texted it to her while she was “drinking a piña colada on a beach in Mexico,” Lainey says she instantly gravitated toward “Never Say Never.”

“I immediately knew this song was special,” the rising star tells Nashville’s Tennesseean. “Even though it was completely different than ‘Things a Man Oughta Know,’ the song — and no, not the piña colada — made me feel something, so we recorded it.”

That intuition has served her well. Lainey was one of the genre’s biggest breakout stories in 2021, with a hit debut single and an opening slot on tour with Jason Aldean.

“It’s like I was being pulled behind a speedboat on a kneeboard,” she describes, thinking about her ascent to stardom.

There’s more ahead for Lainey, who’s a three-time nominee at this year’s ACM Awards — a turn of events that “blows my mind,” she says.

“I’ve been practicing my dang award-winning ACM speech since I was a little girl, and now that I might have to use it, I don’t know what I’m gonna say,” she adds.

As for “Never Say Never,” Lainey’s gut feeling seems to paying off there, too: The song is quickly cruising towards country radio’s top-fifteen.

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