Morgan Wallen – Last Night

When Whiskey Talk Broke Every Record

Morgan Wallen released “Last Night” on March 3, 2023, as the third single from his sprawling 36-track album One Thing at a Time. The song climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 18, becoming Wallen’s first chart-topper and the first country song by a solo male artist to reach the summit in 42 years, since Eddie Rabbitt’s “I Love a Rainy Night” in 1981. It stayed at number one for 16 non-consecutive weeks, tied for the second-longest run in Hot 100 history. The track dominated streaming, becoming the first song to reach one billion on-demand streams in the United States within a single year.
The chart dominance rewrote modern country history. On August 5, 2023, “Last Night” sat between Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Luke Combs’s “Fast Car”, marking the first time country artists occupied all three top spots on the Hot 100. The song spent 30 weeks in the top ten and became the only single to peak at number one during six consecutive months. It topped both the all-genre Billboard 200 and Hot 100 year-end charts for 2023, making Wallen the first country artist to capture both year-end number one positions simultaneously. The numbers told a story the industry couldn’t ignore: mainstream audiences wanted country music that didn’t apologize for blending genres.
Ashley Gorley, one of Nashville’s most prolific hitmakers, co-wrote the song with John Byron, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, and Ryan Vojtesak, better known as Charlie Handsome. Handsome’s involvement proved crucial. The hip-hop producer, known for work with Drake, Kanye West, and Post Malone, brought trap-inspired production elements that separated “Last Night” from traditional country ballads. The writing team built the narrative around a drunken fight between lovers who both know they’ll reconcile by morning, tapping into the toxic cycle that kept people returning to bad relationships. The hook landed because everyone recognized the pattern: saying terrible things under the influence, then waking up wanting exactly what you’d sworn off hours earlier.
Joey Moi produced the track alongside Handsome, creating a stripped-down arrangement built on serpentine guitar riffs and 808-driven beats. Moi, who’d worked with Nickelback before becoming Wallen’s studio partner, understood how to balance country authenticity with pop accessibility. The production stayed minimal, allowing Wallen’s gravelly drawl to dominate. Where other producers might have added orchestral elements, Moi and Handsome kept everything lean. The track was recorded primarily at Abbey Road Studios in London during sessions for One Thing at a Time, with Wallen working in Studio Two where The Beatles had made history decades earlier. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: country’s biggest crossover hit of the decade tracked in Britain’s most famous rock studio.
One Thing at a Time became the biggest album of 2023, spending its first 12 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and eventually racking up 19 non-consecutive weeks at the top. The album moved 501,000 equivalent units in its first week, the largest opening of any album that year. All 36 tracks charted simultaneously on the Hot 100, breaking Drake’s record of 27. Wallen placed five songs in the top ten the same week “Last Night” hit number one, including “You Proof” and “Thought You Should Know.” The album’s success validated Wallen’s decision to pack it with 36 tracks that blended country, alternative, and hip-hop influences. Critics complained about the bloat, but streaming audiences consumed everything.
The song’s influence extended beyond country radio. Ringo Starr never covered it, but everyone from bar bands to wedding singers learned it. The track appeared in countless TikTok videos, soundtracking breakup narratives and late-night regret compilations. Wallen performed it on New Year’s Eve 2023 in downtown Nashville with confetti and fireworks, cementing it as the defining country moment of the year. The Abbey Road Sessions version, released a year later, stripped the production even further, proving the song’s bones were strong enough to survive any arrangement. Radio programmers who’d initially resisted playing Wallen after his 2021 controversy found themselves unable to ignore audience demand.
Wallen told Spotify’s Billions Club series that he knew during recording the song was special, one of those rare moments in the studio where everyone feels it simultaneously. That instinct proved correct. “Last Night” didn’t just give Wallen his first number one—it redefined what country crossover success looked like in the streaming era. The song proved you could top the all-genre charts without abandoning your twang, provided you understood how to build bridges between Nashville and every other genre’s audience.