The song initially gained popularity on the social video sharing app TikTok and eventually entered the Billboard charts in March 2019.

[4] At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, the remix (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus) was nominated for Record of the Year and won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video.

Within a month of writing it, Lil Nas X chose to alter the song's meaning so that the "old town road" would be a symbol of success.

YoungKio downloaded the song and imported the file to FL Studio, chopping up the Nine Inch Nails sample and filtering it so that it sounded like an old field recording, then reordering sections in an effort to make the austere original more catchy and adding drums underneath.

[20] Trent Reznor later said that, shortly after the song began gaining traction, he received a call from Lil Nas X's manager about the sample, asking for clearance to use it, which he granted.

[40] "Old Town Road" was released independently as a single on December 3, 2018, during the rise of the "Yeehaw Agenda" meme, a movement inspired by cowboy fashion and culture.

[12] The song's first music video is composed entirely of footage and clips from the 2018 Western action-adventure game, Red Dead Redemption 2.

[36] The first official remix of "Old Town Road", featuring the American country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, was released on April 5, 2019, by Columbia Records.

It was directed by Calmatic, and has guest appearances by Chris Rock, HaHa Davis, Rico Nasty, Diplo, Jozzy, Young Kio and Vince Staples.

[47][48] On March 29, 2019, Lil Nas X danced to "Old Town Road" with the Atlanta Hawks cheerleaders during a basketball game at State Farm Arena.

[49] On April 29, 2019, Lil Nas X and Cyrus performed the live debut of "Old Town Road" as part of Diplo's set at the Stagecoach Festival.

[58] The exclusion of "Old Town Road" brought criticism of the evaluation of the work of non-white artists in the country genre, with the Rolling Stone writer Elias Leight referring to Beyoncé, another black artist, whose song "Daddy Lessons" failed to be considered a country song by The Recording Academy in 2016.

"[59] In light of the criticism, Billboard later stated that the decision to remove "Old Town Road" from the Hot Country Songs chart had nothing to do with Lil Nas X's race.

[60][61] In response, Sony Music Nashville CEO Randy Goodman told Billboard that his team had started testing the song in some country radio markets, adding "it would be negligent not to look at it".

[60] In the United States, the original version of "Old Town Road" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week ending April 13, 2019;[62] at one minute and 53 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.

[64] This song also became Cyrus's biggest hit in the U.S. since "Achy Breaky Heart" peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 27 years prior.

[66][67] In October 2019, "Old Town Road" became the fastest single in RIAA history to receive diamond certification in the United States.

The certification, which is awarded to singles that attain national combined sales and streams of ten million units, was achieved by the song in its eleventh month of release.

On August 24, it was finally unseated by Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" which had waited in the runner-up spot for nine nonconsecutive weeks.

"Old Town Road"'s 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).

[72] In accordance with their methodologies, Billboard and Rolling Stone each assign a single position to "Old Town Road" on their respective charts by combining the performance figures of every released version of the song determined to be sufficiently similar to the original.

[83] The remix featuring Cyrus achieved a record 19-weeks run at number one on the Canadian Hot 100,[84][85][better source needed] and peaked within the top five in more than five other markets.

[248] The remix was premiered at Diplo's set for the country music Stagecoach Festival alongside the first-ever live performance of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X and Cyrus.

The remix was released in an effort to keep "Old Town Road" at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, as the song was two weeks away from tying for the all-time Hot 100 record held by "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee; it has since broken that record.

"[20] Young Thug has been previously credited with bringing country trap into the mainstream with his experimental mixtape, Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017).

[259] A music video was released in May 2019 and has Cupcakke and her backup dancers riding toy horses and handling phallic objects, including lollipops, water bottles and corn on the cob.

[263] The song was featured in an episode of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, titled "Old Towne Road", with Lil Nas X guest starring as one of the voices.

Rather than Billy Ray Cyrus' section of the song, the character of Bobby Proud, voiced by Cedric the Entertainer, joins in with newly written lyrics.