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- This is gonna be the
hard part--
- [Man] Quiet in the room

Can you sneak
a little bit this way?

That's cool, thank
you, that's better.

- That was the demo.

Yeah, this is a Fazioli.

The only one in the
south, actually.

Isn't that pretty?

- I did the spray
tan this morning.

- I look so white.

Do I look too white?

- Uh, let's see what I got here.

Grab a guitar?

You write most
of your stuff in this bunker?

- Well, when I'm, when I'm, yes.

Take a position
you feel super comfortable in,

maybe, you know, to play music.

That
was back at home.

- Called me at like noon,
on Tuesday, it was a Tuesday.

- Okay, wrong song.

- I'm good, how are you?
- [Man] I'm good, good to see
you!

- That's what I do.

I've been fortunate.

I've had about 500
of my songs recorded.

I've had 42 Top 20 singles.

And 25 of those songs
ended up being Number Ones.

Which means nobody knows
who the [beep] I am.

- I'm the guy that
wrote Try for P!nk.

- You Give Love a Bad
Name, Livin' on a Prayer,

Livin' La Vida Loca.

- Pontoon.
- Faithfully.

- Like I'm Gonna Lose You.

- Grenade, Party in the USA.

- Nobody Wants to Be Lonely.

- Stay.
- Mama's Broken Heart.

- The Climb.

- A Little Less Conversation.
- Live Like You Were Dyin'.

- Have a Little Faith in Me.

- Change the World.

- Thousand Years,
Because of You.

- The River.
- Whiskey Lullaby.

- What Hurts the Most.

- I'm the guy that wrote
Jesus Take the Wheel.

Well, I should say it this way.

I'm one of the three people
that wrote Jesus Take the Wheel.

- We gonna talk first,
you want me to play first,

what would you like to do?
- [Director] Let's talk first.

- Sure, good.

- Why is
Nashville this like

bastion of creativity?

And when it comes to
songs, right, this is it.

Why Nashville?

- I've often thought a
lot about why Nashville,

why is this place, this place.

You know, most of the real
reasons are mysterious

as to why this place.

But I'm not usually
one for these,

for the more,

new age-y explanations
of there's just a vibe

or there's just an energy.

But there's a vibe,
there's an energy.

I don't know what that is.

But I guess one of
the biggest reasons is

that the antenna

that sent out the Grand Ol' Opry

to far-flung areas
all over this country

at a time when everybody
listened to radio.

It was almost like the Bat
Light into the night saying,

you know, come here, this
is where this happens.

- Johnny Cash.

- Patsy Cline
with another one of her--

- Dolly Parton.

- Artists came to Nashville who,

once they made it on
the Grand Ol' Opry,

they were in their cars
driving from Birmingham

to Minneapolis to play a show.

So they came back on Friday
and Saturday night to perform

on the Grand Ol' Opry.

And when they came back in,

those artists who stayed
at home in Nashville

would greet them at the
backstage door and say,

"Hey, I wrote a song,
I got a song for you."

So an industry was born
out of entertainers

being out on the road and
not having enough time

to write songs.

And that's how Nashville became

this epicenter of
songwriting in the world.

I just sort of fell
in love with this,

the idea that the entire
country music industry

took place on about
four square blocks

of this quiet little town.

And most, except for
the record companies,

everything took place in a house

that was converted
into an office.

- There's so much, there's
so much brilliance,

so much brilliance in this town.

That's why people come
from all over the world

to write here.

I've written with and seen
some of the best on the planet

come to Nashville and
say, "Well, this is where

"great songwriters
come to write songs."

- I'm moving to
Nashville in two months.

I've been in LA for
the last 15 years.

I've been coming to Nashville

for probably five or six years.

There's 10 people that I
work with all the time in LA.

And here, I feel like it's
a pretty unlimited amount

of folks that I can
kind of be writing with.

- Oh, Nashville is ridiculous.

It's like a fruitcake.

It's densely packed with talent.

You can go to any one
of these buildings.

There's probably somebody
in there that's a badass.

- I can promise you there's
100 songs being written

right now in this
town, this very second.

And it makes Nashville
a very unique place.

- You go get a pizza,

they're gonna have
a songwriters' night
at the pizza place.

This is the only town I've
ever known where banks

have a stage in the bank.

They literally have stages in
some of the banks around here.

Songwriters will get up.

Every waiter that waits on you,

every person that
valet parks your car

is a world-class gifted
musician or songwriter.

- Kind of what I always tell
people is for six months,

don't worry about the business.

Just worry about becoming a
member of the music community.

Go see how competitive
it is here.

Go to every writers'
night you can go to.

Shake the hands of
every songwriter

you would ever wanna meet,

because they're gonna
be available to you.

They're gonna be nice to you,

because they were in your shoes.

- Move here.

Start livin' here, start
being a citizen here.

They take you in, man.

- I used to friend
people on Facebook

that I knew were in
the music industry.

And I would post
demos or videos of me

at Writers' Nights or whatever.

And I would just
hope that someone

would stumble across
it, and someone did.

And I went in wanting to learn,

but never asking
for a record deal

or never asking for
a publishing deal.

I was like, "Hey,
my name's Kelsea.

"I'm from Knoxville.

"I'm 15, and I really want
you to listen to what I do

"and tell me how
I could be better.

"Or tell me who I should
be with to make me better."

And people took the meetings
because they didn't think

that I was trying to get
anything, except for advice.

- Songwriting may be the only
profession I've ever seen

where every songwriter
genuinely is trying to teach

the person that's gonna
be their competition.

- That's something Nashville has

that so few industries
still have that,

where you can learn
from the masters,

where you can sit in a room
and the gods of this field

will tell you their
stories and let you in.

- I went to my first
Writers in the Round

at the Bluebird Cafe.

It was an epiphany,
it was religion.

It was, I'd never
seen anything like it.

- To be so close to
somebody that you can feel

their foot in the carpet while
they start to sing a song,

not only that they wrote
maybe 15 years ago,

but you've heard on
your radio 10,000 times,

and has become a
part of your life.

It made me want to
be so much better.

It made me feel horrible.

It made me feel like every
song I'd written before

was gone, and I'm
not using that.

It's about, it's what
happens from here on out.

- I remember trying
out for the open mic,

and like 90 people tried
out, and 30 people made it.

And I made it.

- It's in a little
bitty strip mall.

It seats 99 people.

And it launched just about
every songwriter career

in this town.

Artists from Keith Urban to
Taylor Swift to Garth Brooks

were discovered at The Bluebird.

- This is a place
where dreams come true.

- Changed your life.

- Sure changed mine, yeah.

Sure changed mine, changed
my children's lives.

Changed my children's
lives I didn't have yet.

- The Bluebird Cafe,
we help songwriters.

I always wanted to get it
printed as a bumper sticker.

We help songwriters.

- And it's all about the song.

Even more about the song
than it was the songwriter

think it'd be possible.

- On my own tombstone,
it's just gonna say, Shh,

because that's just the
shortest way to say,

there's something
important going on here.

Shut up and listen to it.

- Four writers just playing
their incredible songs.

Some were hits, some were new.

It changed my life,

because that night I
thought, you know what,

that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to buckle down
and be the best songwriter

I know how to be.

So I went up and down
these streets of Nashville

trying to get a publishing
deal, a record deal, anything.

And I couldn't get arrested.

- Songwriters spend years,

years waiting for
that one break.

They live on credit cards.

They wait to have
babies, because they
have to write songs.

- It took about five years
of just nonstop grinding.

I would record anywhere, in
the closet or in the bathroom.

- One of my funnier,

I love this.

So my mom, this is back
in the velour days, right.

So I had this, she gave me
this robe for Christmas.

So I had this black
velour robe that I'd wear.

And I had a little hook on
the back of my bathroom door

I hung my robe upon.

And I'm in my bathroom one
day, sitting on the commode,

and I started lookin',
and I can see the door

through parts of the robe.

And I realized, I've worn
the ass out of this robe

from sitting down there
working in my studio.

I'd literally just
worn the ass out.

And all I could
think of was like,

the pizza dude must think
I'm totally hittin' on him,

'cause when I get the
door and I turn, you know,

to walk back inside, and
he's just lookin' at my ass,

just my thinly veiled,

literally my thinly veiled ass.

I was like .

- And then somebody says,
"Okay, you're ready.

"I'm gonna sign you
to a publishing deal,"

and pays him $20,000 a year,

which is not enough to live on.

- Oh gosh, I mean,
I've been a bartender,

cater waiter, valet.

I used to sell pagers.

- When I first started out,
you know, this guy told me,

wrote with Bob Dylan, he said,

"You know, you ain't
got any mud on you."

I said, "What do
you mean by that?"

He said, "Well, you
ain't got any mud.

"You've been loved and coddled.

"You've got no mud.

"You've got no rejection.

"Your mommy and dad
love you, buh buh buh."

And he goes, "You're gonna
need to get some mud."

- They call Nashville
a 10-year town,

but I dropped out of ninth grade

and started touring
when I was 14,

and had 10 years before
I came to Nashville,

of like losing record deals,

promoters stealing
your money on tour.

- It's a beautiful town.

It can make all your
dreams come true.

But it can also be
such a bitch of a town.

It can be so hard.

You're putting your heart
out on the line daily

and getting it smashed
because it doesn't sound

like the radio or no one
will ever record that song

'cause it's too
sad, or something.

So this is This
Town Is Killing Me.

- It's a no business.

You're gonna hear no.

No is usual.

You're gonna write
a lot of songs,

and they're gonna
pass on most of them.

So you're gonna have
to want it bad enough

to deal with failure.

Because when they finally
say yes, it's amazing.

- There was a turning
point where I thought,

I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna
have to do something else.

I'm not going to be able to
support a family like this.

And I went to be the assistant

to this big real estate agent.

I put a suit on,
borrowed a suit.

And I was sitting in this big
glass lobby of this building

and all these guys kept
walking through in their suits

with their briefcases.

And I just had a panic attack.

I just started
breathing really hard.

I was sweating.

And I just realized, I was
gonna have to do music,

no matter what.

And if I never made money,

then I would just continue
doing those odd jobs

that I'd been doing
all those years.

And that was

two months before
I got my first cut.

- I mean, it knocks
you down 50 times,

hoping you won't get back up.

And if you do, that's
the time it works.

- It was a title my
father had given me.

I was calling him
about money, again.

He said, "No, you're
not coming home, John.

"Lose that idea,
don't stop believing.

"I mean it, don't
stop believing."

And I scribble in this
thing, and there it is.

- I remember I hadn't
released any music yet,

and finally got to
release my first record.

And I was at the grocery
store, just came out,

and was standing on the
corner with my bags.

And this car came and
pulled up at the stoplight

and the windows
were rolled down,

and she was listening
to my song on the radio,

and singing.

And it was the coolest feeling.

So I had a friend with
me and he was like,

"That's you!"

I'm like, "That's me!"

And he's like, "That's her,'
tellin' the girl, "That's her!"

And she's driving, she's like.

- I'm sitting right there

when a guy named Tony
Arata's onstage one night.

He sings these songs.

Tony's a great writer.

- Garth was sitting
right back over there.

He was doing construction
and selling boots.

And I was loading trucks at UPS.

It was me, Garth, Liz Hengber,
who was a waitress here,

and Mark Irwin, who
was the bartender.

And that was not only
who was performing,

it was pretty much the crowd.

But we each took
turns playing songs.

- And then here comes this
song called The Dance.

And it was the last song he
played. I went up to him.

I said, "Dude, surely
that's gotta be on hold

"or somebody's cut that."

He goes, "No, it's
been here a while."

Took it to Allen Reynolds.

And Allen Reynolds
told me, he said,

"If you don't cut The Dance,

"it'll be the biggest
hit you never had."

- I wrote Stay with a
guy named Justin Parker,

and he and I were both
super broke at the time,

met at a coffee shop.

I was almost too hungover to go.

I was nearly gonna cancel.

And showed up anyway,
laid on the couch

with like an orange
juice and a sandwich.

And he started
playing these chords.

And I said to him like,

- Songwriting
is, uh, is like what?

- Mark Huhta described
it perfectly to me.

He said it's like hopping
in a little spaceship

and taking a trip, you know.

That's what songwriting
feels like to me,

because it's almost
like, you know,

I'm just kinda steering,
but not really.

- Writing a song is,
uh, it's like a drug.

- [Director] Writing
a song is like?

- Writing song is like flying.

- Writing
a song is like?

- Writing a song is
like getting beat up.

- Writing
a song is like?

- Writing a song is like
having your heart broken

over and over and over.

- Writing
a song is like?

- Writing a song is
like your first memory

of a birthday party.

- Songwriting is like therapy.

It's like you're
writing this great movie

that's going on in your mind.

And if you get it right,

the rest of the world gets to
see the movie in Technicolor.

- Songwriting is prayer.

You know, you open
yourself up to receive.

And however you do that,

whether you do that
with a couple of joints

and a shot of whiskey,

or if you do that by literally
getting on your knees

and praying for inspiration,

that's what prayer is.

It's opening yourself
up to the possibility

of something that doesn't exist.

As a songwriter, it's
like clairvoyance.

- You have your good days,
and you have your bad days,

and you have your days
that it's almost like

you don't even remember feeling
it come through your body

and down on paper.

So pretty amazing thing
that we get to do.

You like that?

I like it.

- A little instrumental
session and then

You know like?

- My favorite song is possibly
my most successful to date,

which would be Try for P!nk.

People talk about

you kinda hear
tapping into something

and there's something
bigger than you

kind of vibe, you know.

That song was literally,

I woke up with that
chorus on my head.

Like I've never had that.

95% of what you can
hear on the radio

was literally like, oh,

What is this?

This is interesting.

And I grabbed my
phone, recorded it,

worked on it for a second.

And then I called my buddy
Ben later on and said,

"Hey, why don't you
come on the Friday

"and we'll work
on that Try song."

Should the second verse be
more about her and them?

And then that last verse is
our current second verse?

- Um, yeah, yeah.
- This is sick.

So it was pretty,

it was pretty amazing when
you could see that story

of how a song comes to be.

It's almost like
an act of God, man.

- Stranger you met on a plane.

Wrong number.

A ring of keys and
none of them work.

Yesterday's beer.

Oh man.

So I'm supposed to make
a song out of this?

- Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know where
this is goin', you know.

It would take me a,
take me a minute.

It just seems like
trying to paint a picture

of a missed
connection, basically.

Not in the Craigslist way, but,

or maybe in the Craigslist way.

Yeah, that could be good.

Then it becomes a story song.

- That's
very interesting. Is
that the way it is?

Like there's all these scraps
lying around in your brain

or in the universe
and you're like?

- Yeah, I've gotten to
the point where my writing

has become more,

I guess abstract, for
lack of a better word.

I don't know, it's
like approaching it

like an abstract painting,

instead of like with
a title or, you know,

a hook, or something like--
- Really?

- Yeah.

So I just kinda float
around, you know,

with my daughter, watching
over her with the guitar,

or take her on a walk
and recite the lyrics

and see what kinda edits itself.

So this is very similar.

- How is it that
you put together a song?

What's your deal?

- I wish I knew how
to write a song.

I mean, no, I'm serious.

I know there's craftsmen in
town who can write on a dime.

And I'm not one of those.

I have a habit of playing
the guitar every day.

And within that habit, I
hope that something comes up.

But it doesn't always.

A lot of younger writers have
come up to me over the years.

And the only advice I can
give is to write songs.

You just have to do it.

- Professional
songwriting in Nashville

is not what people think it is.

Most people think
songwriters smoke weed

and walk around the streets
and hope that inspiration hits.

That's sort of a good way
to be a poor songwriter.

You know, you have to treat
it like a job, you really do.

You know, Nashville has
bit of a tradition of that

that started in the '70s.

Before then, it
was more like that.

It was just, let's
wait on inspiration.

And then a few guys kinda said,

"You know what, I'm
gonna keep office hours."

- In the 1950s and
'60s and into the '70s

and through the '70s, really,

I wrote virtually everything
I wrote by myself.

I thought you had
to go lock yourself

in a dark room somewhere, pull
down the shades at midnight,

and sit there until three
or four in the morning

and see how miserable
you could get

and write a sad country song.

Then I discovered a
thing called cowriting.

- You go in.

You write either with a
friend that you know well

or someone you've never met.

And your job is to
let your guard down

and just be honest with them.

- I think it's interesting
that songwriting

is one of the only mediums
where you shape things together.

Like nobody starts a painting

and hands it to
someone else to finish.

But I love that
about songwriting

because some of
my favorite ideas

would never have come along
if I didn't have his brain

or someone else's
brain in the room.

- The most amazing thing
about what I do is,

you know, Monday
through Friday is I go

and I sit in little
rooms on Music Row

with other songwriters,
and I have for 20 years.

And we all do life together.

- I'm like in a bit of a weird
mood. I'm like super pumped

to be here.

I had a big fight with
Raleigh, of course.

I feel like I've been
- Oh no. in this cycle before.

So I'm like juggling
that in my brain.

- Pain and beauty.

- And all of it is like I was
just an asshole this morning

is basically what
it comes down to.

That's the truth.

And so like, trying
to deal with that.

- That's what we do all morning.

You know, we're drinking coffee.

We're talking about what
happened last weekend

or last night.

And then you start
talking about song ideas.

- I love this line. I don't
remember where I heard it,

but like a building's
rooms I've never explored.

- Ooh.

- I think it's beautiful.

- I got this kinda dumb idea.

- [ I like dumb ideas.

- It's called It Ain't
a Lie If It's the Truth.

- [Woman] If It Ain't a Lie?

- It Ain't a Lie
- It Ain't a Lie.

If It's the Truth.

♪ If ain't a lie

- It's just this
ping-pong process

of song idea, song
idea, song idea.

And then all of the sudden,
someone says something

that rings a bell.

- Did you say, "Baby,
you're my lighthouse?"

- I don't know what
it is.

- At the end of the day,
we're all making it up.

It's just, it is truly a mess.

And it isn't as
scientific as you think.

And it's like no, it's not
right, no it's not right.

I don't know, more
of a milkshake sound.

And then suddenly you've
got something that's great.

- Oh, I like that, when I'm
lost on a world and sea.

- I'd love to like,

so that's kinda like a
bit more like abstract.

I'd like to bring it into
- Real world?

like some real like.

- I love that.

- I don't know.

I like that.
- I love that.

- Now, we need a hit chorus,

and we need two verses.

It needs to be simple,

but it needs to be
profound, you know.

We need to be brief.

But when you start
getting into those things,

this is a different
part of your brain

from the part of the heart
that made you think of the idea

in the first place.

- Oh.
- Because we've only been

singing the back half.
- Yes.

- And I think that
- Right.

makes it enough.

And it's like any
trouble rolls away.

- Yes, yes.

- Do I know if you're
gonna like the song?

I have no idea.

You may not even understand
what we're talking about.

And I've completely miss
the point altogether.

But if I can get done and
I can look at it and say

I believe this is a hit idea

and I think we wrote it as
well as we possibly could've,

then I think the
song is finished.

- Okay, I'm gonna
play it from the top.

Yeah.

- Anybody who's made a career
as a writer will tell you,

really in some ways, it's
not even the end product.

It's the process
that's most important.

- The best writing rooms, to me,

are when there's three
people in the room.

Then those three people form
pretty specific functions.

- Nowadays you might
have a track guy.

And then you got another lyric
guy, you got an idea guy.

I need a melody guy.

I'm decent at it,

but I'd rather have
somebody that's great at it.

If it's one of the best
idea's I've had all year,

one thing I do not want to
do is write about myself,

'cause it's not gonna be a hit.

Most everybody in
Nashville does not know how

to do the whole thing.

The track guy's
amazing, the track girl,

whoever it is, it's amazing.

What they do, I can't do that.

But it sounds badass when
you walk in that room

and they've got something going,

it's something going.

- Oh, I love
acoustics, you know.

Most of the time I
hear the phrasing first

before a actual lyric.

I don't know.

I mean, shit, you know, I mean.

Just kind of make
it up, you know.

I don't know, it's not bad.

You know, and some of them
make sense, some of it doesn't.

But you just kinda
blindly go in a direction

that just feels right.

- [ Is there a recipe
to writing a great song?

- You know, sometimes, in
anything we do in life,

somewhere there's this
mentor that you went to

and you go back to and
you really look up to.

And mine was a Hall of Fame
songwriter named Tom Shapiro.

He used to say, "There's
5,000 ways to write a song.

"Pick one."

I think that's magic.

- When I first started
coming to town, I was like,

I wanna write songs.

I think I met with 30
publishers in town.

And so I went around to
literally every publishing house

with my guitar, played a song.

And I remember like how I
would write songs at home

is I would just pick
up my guitar and like,

whenever I'd kind
of feel inspiration.

But it was the first
time that I saw

like a staff songwriter.

These writers would
come in with books

and they would have
titles and titles

and like ideas and ideas.

And I was like what is
this way of writing?

- There's one on here called
Camp Out Country Titles.

She's been living
in all of her junk,

goin' for the kill, makin'
thrills, crying diamonds.

I don't know what
those mean, yet,

but I'm sure they'll
turn into something.

- Yeah, come on,
come on, come on, sing it.

Give me some of it.

Crying about an.

- Oh, I don't know.

Now we're like the
TV show Nashville.

Like that doesn't
actually happen.

- That
doesn't happen, okay.

- I've got a notebook
full of ideas.

And it's, I mean, it's
just pages and pages

and pages of titles.

That's the way I do it
is I brainstorm titles

as frequently as I can.

I don't think about them
when I write them down

and then I go back to them.

- Is there any
way we could photograph that

one day, or?

- I would give anything for
you to be able to do that,

because it got stolen.

- Oh shit.

- It got stolen about four
months ago out of my Jeep

with my computer.

It was in my backpack.

And I couldn't have given
a shit about that computer.

But that notebook had 17
years' worth of ideas in it.

This is a smaller notebook
that I used to use.

But I'll fill them up.

I'll have explanations
sometimes out in the margin.

And it's not necessarily
that there's going to be

a great title in there.

It's just thoughts,
and it's phrases

that can make me
think of other things.

- It's fodder,
your writing fodder.

- Exactly.

- It always starts
with words for me.

And I suppose that's
because I'm a singer,

so I'll overhear something,

somebody having a
conversation at a table

or something in a movie will,

I'll love a line.

I'll think it's so well-written,

and something about it
will get in my head.

A lot of times, I think I write
most of my songs in the car,

just driving.

And there's something
about the speed of that

and everything just
flying past so much,

which is the exact
speed of my brain.

It's like I don't feel like
I'm tripping over myself

and everything's
coming out smooth.

- I think songwriters
think a little differently.

You see the world a
little differently.

You're always going, that's
a song, that's a song.

That dude and that girl
over there, that's a song.

- I might be in the middle
of Thanksgiving dinner,

hear a word, I
gotta document it.

- I'll be in the middle of
an argument with someone

and think, ooh, they just
said a really good line.

I'll put it down and go, okay,

gotta get back to
the actual situation.

- That's the thing is that
it really is a blessing, man.

An idea's a blessing,
and that's the thing.

You never, you don't know
where they come from.

You don't know why something
moves you in a moment.

Your job is not to question it.

Your job is to document.

- Songwriting happens
all year-round.

And it happens everywhere.

And I just try to be open
enough to receive it.

- All right.
- Okay.

- Why don't
you tell me the story--

- Oh, the story, okay,
the story of the song.

It's just, it's a, it is
a country song in itself.

So, you know, it's just classic.

In like three weeks' time,
or in a week, really,

my marriage went south,
I lost my record deal,

and I lost my publishing deal.

And as most country
singers, I just, you know,

figured I could work it out
in a bottle of Jack Daniels

at some point.

I was hanging out at
my manager's house,

and we were sitting up way
too late, had way too many,

and he commented that I'd
put a bottle to my head

and pulled the trigger.

And I said, I said,
yeah, that, man,

wow, that's pretty.

I scribbled that down and I
lived with that idea for awhile.

And then that's when I
brought it to Bill Anderson.

I hear a--

- Anybody that could
come up with a line of

he put the bottle to his
head and pulled the trigger

is a pretty special human being.

I think that's the song that
most people will say to me,

"Gosh, I didn't realize
you wrote that."

- Your first instinct
when you hear something

like Whiskey Lullaby is not
what a commercial masterpiece.

It's more like, what an
artistic masterpiece.

- It was told in a way that, uh,

was a unique take and captured
everybody's attention.

I mean, it won every award.

And it wasn't a new story.

You need to tell somebody
something they already know

or something they've
already lived through.

But the secret is in
telling it in a way

that they haven't heard.

- When things started
to happen for me,

when my artistry
started to take off,

was when I started trying
to write songs for,

I always say for the woman
who worked at the bank.

Because when I would go in
to write songs every morning,

a lot of days I would
stop by the bank.

And I would think about that
woman who was the teller.

And I would think, what's
going on in her life?

You know, what's her story
and how do I tell that?

- Write it to somebody.

Don't just write a song
like espousing something.

To someone.

You're writing, you're
always singing to somebody.

When I moved to Nashville,

I was dating a girl
back in West Virginia,

had been dating her
for a couple of years,

actually, through college.

And two weeks after
transferring here found out

that she had sort of
gone to my best friend

at home for consolation.

And it was devastating.

I mean it was, in some
ways, the greatest thing

she could've ever done for me.

And so I would sit and I
would put her photograph

on the desk and I
would write to her.

And I wrote the song
Another You to her

and got it cut and went to
number two on the chart.

- You're trying to
almost sell a house.

Your song's like an open house.

You bring a listener
into the foyer

and if he doesn't like
what he sees in the foyer,

he's gonna walk out.

So give them a nugget of
some truth, of something,

so they'll continue to listen.

And that's what's so
good in Nashville.

A lot of the writers
here have done the work,

you know, in putting the right
furniture in their songs.

Interesting furniture,
interesting decoration.

- At the end of the day,
everybody wants a great lyric,

a real lyric, a raw lyric.

And that's what Nashville
brings, I think, to LA

and to New York is we
learned from these guys

that are twisting hooks, they're
painting pictures, they're,

I mean, the Nashville
songwriting poets,

like Kris Kristofferson
taught us how to write.

- Kris had made such an impact.

He was the first writer to
really introduce the bedroom

to country music.

Take the ribbon from your
hair, shake it loose,

let it fall.

Lay it soft against my skin
like the shadows on the wall.

Very poetic stuff, but
it was very seductive

and it was smart.

The great artists like Kris
Kristofferson or Guy Clark

or Townes Van Zandt
or John Prine,

those are the teachers.

- Guy Clark and I would
be writing these songs.

And it was kind of like being
able to hang out and paint

with Picasso, you know,
for 20-some years.

- Where melody and poetry meet

is where I wanna be.

That's what I learned from a
great artist like Guy Clark.

And I'd go over to his
house and he'd say,

"Hey man, if you
write a good song,

"a really good song,
people are gonna hear it.

"End of story."

- I was obsessed
with Patsy Cline.

And one of my first
memories of songwriting

was when it would say
written by Harlan Howard,

I was like, well,
who is Harlan Howard?

- A lot of people thought
that Harlan Howard,

and there's a great
argument to be made,

was the greatest
songwriter that ever,

you know, put a pencil to a
piece of paper in Nashville.

- I think if you're not in
some way influenced by him,

you're missing
the boat big time.

And you need to go
back and listen.

Because I just think he
did so much with so little.

The Three Chords and the Truth,

I think that can be
overlooked sometimes,

but simple is the
hardest thing to be.

- I admire the kind of
songwriter that can,

that's what, you know, John
Lennon was going for I think,

more and more was
the simplicity,

the elegant simplicity of
just two or three words,

two or three chords.

I think that's amazing.

- It's economy.

That's what I try to do every
day is boil down a topic.

What's the essence of
what we're trying to say?

He stopped loving her today.

You know, so simple,
but it says so much.

And the feeling is not simple.

It's complex and it's timeless.

- The song may not
be your cup of tea,

but you will walk out of there
going, that was the truth.

And that can't be denied.

- Songwriting for
me has to be truth.

It has to be true.

It has to have some kind of,

something that
rings true for me.

If it doesn't have
that, you know it,

especially when you get
in front of an audience

and attempt to sing that song,

because the audience can
tell when you're lying.

- Harlan's on to something.

You don't really
need anything more

than three chords and the truth,

truth being underlined.

I tend to stay more in the
five or six chord range myself.

- For me, it's more
like seven chords

and the perceived
truth [laughs].

- Well, I don't know about
any three chords.

I may know four or five,

and I know where to
buy one of these.

- Now it's more like
four chords and a pickup.

- Now it's two chords
and a loop [laughs].

- But I think if your
truth is your truth,

the important thing is that
you're wearing it on your sleeve

and really willing to put it
out there for people to hear

and disagree with or agree with.

So much of
songwriting just comes

from a point of inspiration,

and then you just run
as fast as you can

into the middle of nowhere

and try to describe what it
is you're seeing or feeling.

- I had an experience
writing a song

with one of my
favorite cowriters.

I opened up an idea.

It was painful,
the process of it,

'cause I was really,

it was like confessing things

that I didn't even
wanna know about myself.

And I came home to Chuck,

and I played it for
him and he said,

"That's the best song
you've ever written."

And I just cried and I said,

"Well, if that's what
it takes, then I quit."

I said,
"It's too hard."

- Yeah, I think it's the one
thing we're obligated to do

is tell it true.

You know, pretty much everything

people go through is universal.

And if you tell it true,
it's gonna resonate.

- And truth doesn't
always have to be like

rock you to your core truth,

like, oh man, that's some
deep stuff right there.

That really hits
me where I live.

Sometimes the funniest
things are true.

- I got a call from a legendary
A&R guy, John Kalodner.

John Kalodner put me into
the room with Joe Perry

and Steven Tyler
to write a song.

The day I got there,
they had gone to a bar.

And it was kind of this
kind of very swanky bar.

And at the very end was
this gorgeous blonde

and from behind, just
curvy, and teased up hair.

And so they were
all drawing straws,

trying to figure out who
was gonna go up to her.

And so suddenly, the
blonde turns around

and it's Vince Neil
of Motley Crue.

And so that's when they all
went oh my God, oh my God, that.

- Life has a funny way
of like giving you signs

before they happen.

I was in a studio in
New York late at night.

I snuck into the studio.

My friend was the engineer.

So I was going in there late
at night to get my demos out.

I was in the hallway
just kinda hanging out

and I looked up and these
two bodyguards came in

with Britney Spears.

And she walked by
and I said to myself,

I'm gonna work with her one day.

I don't know how, but I'm
gonna work with her one day.

I have a few more,

we kind of like to leave
the biggies for the last.

We got Britney up
here, Celine up here,

Bruno, Ne-Yo,

Cher and Christina
Aguilera, Whitney Houston,

and Michael Jackson.

- What?

- Yeah.
- What?

- Yeah, so this is like
royalty lane right here,

whatever you wanna call it.

So I think I had
to convince myself

I was a songwriter
before anyone else said,

"You're a songwriter."

- When did
you go wow, I've arrived?

- When Elvis cuts
one of your songs.

I mean, in my
instance, that was it.

I mean, that was no
getting around it.

I mean, he was the man.

And I had some of the
first songs I wrote,

I wrote with him in mind.

I saw him on the back
of a flatbed truck

at the Hub Motor
Company parking lot.

And all the girls went crazy.

And I thought to myself, boy,

if I can't do that, I'm
gonna get a song to him

if nothing else.

- For me, I like to
have an artist in mind

when I write a song,

'cause I try to kinda put my
voice into that artist's voice.

And that artist could
be a male or female.

- P!nk, she's a massive artist.

Her recording your song is this,

you know, it
affected us greatly.

And she said
something, she said,

"LA Reed always told me,

"'Smart artists will cut a song,

"'even if they didn't write it."

And it was like, wow.

- And we get these pitch sheets,

the publishing companies
get these sheets--

- No kidding, explain this.
- From the record company.

And it'll give
everybody on their label

that's looking for
songs to record.

So you go down
and you kinda see.

And that helps you go, hey man,

I've got a song that
I just wrote last week

that's perfect for what
they're looking for.

And then you send it over
and see if they hear it

and it ends up on the record.

And interestingly enough,
sometimes you write a song

that you were writing for that.

It didn't work for
them, but a year later,

it ends up on someone
else's record.

- Our biggest song
that we had together

was Change the World.

- It got pitched out of PolyGram
Music Publishing Company

and Don Potter took it

from there for Wynonna
Judd's next project.

We were told that it was
gonna be a single for her

and all this stuff.

And then we watched them
put out one, then two,

then three singles
from that record,

and none of them were this song.

So we were just
sort of like wow.

About the time that we
were digesting the fact

that we were not
gonna have a song

out as a single with her,

Clapton puts it out
on the soundtrack

to Summer of '96 and
the movie Phenomenon.

- There's a vast
majority of songs

that have come
professional songwriters

that they said, "I don't
know where this came from,"

or "I was driving
down the road one day,

"and I saw this thing, and
I had to write about this."

"I had to walk into this
room and tell you this story

"and write about it."

And then there's that whole
other side where, you know,

you get a list of things
that a certain artist

is looking for and
you need to write

about these specific things.

But I've been in many rooms

where you may have that
list of directives,

but the room and the
energy in the room

takes you somewhere else.

And that ends up being
the thing that gets cut.

- Wow, really?
- Yeah.

- Can you give
me like an example of that,

like in your own, where
that happened to you?

- Um, yeah, well, yes.

It was summer day, 16th Avenue,

and it was in a
house on the row.

I went up to the attic to
write with Katie Herzig.

And we'd been given
a set of directives,

you know, different artists
who were looking for things

in a specific lane to write in.

I didn't want to write anything.

And I'm sitting there with
my head back on the couch,

and Katie starts playing
these really open chords,

and she's only hitting
two strings every time,

sliding up and down.

And I just pictured in my
head this image of a man

on the street who was also
having a really bad day,

but worse than I was having.

Didn't have a home to go to,

didn't have a car to get in
after all was said and done.

And the lyrics flowed
really quickly.

And 20 minutes in,
we had this song

that was nothing
like the directives.

But that was the
only song of mine

that has ever gotten
Grammy recognition.

- Any time I do a song
and it feels magical,

it may not always
get to the place

that I think it should get to.

But those ones
always find a home.

- One of my good
friends was Bob Beckham,

and he ran Combine Music.

And Bob called me, he said,

"I got this new writer kid in
town named Kris Kristofferson

"and he's written three songs.

"You come listen.

"I want you to record.

"Pick any one you want."

So I said, okay. So I
went over and he played

Help Me Make It
Through the Night,

Sunday Morning Coming Down,

and I think For the Good Times.

And I said,

"Well, I sure love that
Sunday Morning Coming Down.

"I'll cut that."

I put out Sunday
Morning Come Down.

Sold 12.

Johnny Cash cut it a
couple years later,

and it was a big
hit for Johnny Cash.

And I finally figured out,

I didn't have the
image to sell a song

about being stoned
on Sunday morning.

My image is just too clean.

If a song is a hit, it's a hit.

I just wasn't the
right one to sell it.

- You know, when a song
is Song of the Year,

or just a massive
hit, impacting hit,

there's a reason for that.

Something speaks to people.

Like what hurts
the most, you know.

A real song, again,
that was about my father

and the time that he
had left in his life,

when he had sent me out to go,

"Go do your music, man,"

and I didn't get to see
him for a bit near the end,

till the very end.

And you know, all
that time, I was like,

man, I could've been here.

I could've been here.

And he wanted me out there.

He knew, you know, I
didn't know, but he knew.

And so that's what
that song was about.

And then it ends up being
this massive love song

that strikes a chord
throughout the world.

And then you know, and then
I lost my son 10 years ago,

and that song became a
whole new song for me.

- You just never know

when you sit down and
put some words on paper

and give it a melody,

you don't know where the
thing is gonna fly off to

and who it's gonna touch.

- I had a man tell me he
was in his car driving out

in the swamps of Louisiana
listening to the radio.

He said, "I was gonna
commit suicide."

And he said, "Your
song came on the air

"about five little fingers,
about your daughter."

And he said, "I realized
that I really had more

"to live for than
I thought I did.

"I pulled over to
the side of the road.

"I listened to your song.

"I turned the car
around, I went home."

That's when being a
songwriter is special.

- I mean, it's just one
of those weird things

where you never know in my world

what day is gonna be a day
that's gonna change your life

or change other people's
lives, you know.

I show up at this building
pretty much every day,

and I sit in a room this big.

And that particular day,

I remember not even
really want to go to work,

which is unlike me.

But I thought, you
know, Connie Harrington,

I saw her on my calendar.

And I thought, you know,
worst case scenario,

we'll go out to
lunch, she'll be fine.

So Connie had just pieces
of paper and Post-It notes,

and she's always shuffling
through all these ideas.

She came to this one
and she started to cry.

And I was like, what's that?

- I was

driving home, and I
listen to talk radio,

NPR radio, regularly.

And then this man comes on.

He was trying to
petition to get the right

to put flags on the graves

of not just his son's grave,

whom he lost in Afghanistan,

but all the soldiers in
that particular cemetery.

And they asked him how did
he cope with losing his son.

And he said, "I
drive his truck."

And he said, "It
burns gas like crazy,

"but we drive it anyway."

Because he felt closest to him.

- She literally
was crying so hard

that she could not
even tell me the title.

She would get the story
started and then break down.

- And I'm driving, you know,

and I keep little
yellow Post-It notes.

And I'm writing down
the details of the truck

and sticking them on my
dash, trying not to wreck.

And I thought that deserves
to be written about.

- I mean, we just
literally cried our way

through about four
hours of just imagery,

writing words on a page.

I felt so strong that I
had to treat this idea

with kid gloves, because I
knew that there hadn't been

a lot of songs
written about grief.

- But we both agreed
at the end of the day

it would be good to get a
guy's perspective on it.

So we debated who
that should be,

and arrived at Jimmy Yeary.

- There's, you know,
eight male songwriters

just in this building
we could've called.

And if we had called
any of the other ones,

it would be I Drive Your
Truck that we have today.

And so we booked another
writing appointment

and he came in, and me and
him got the guitars out.

He had kind of a melody going.

It was perfect.

- When I write,
when I get so far

and I realize today's
going well enough,

this is gonna be a real song,

I will type in the date and
I will type in the title.

And when I did that,

I just stopped,
burst into tears,

and they're like,
"What's wrong?"

I'm like.

We're wrote that
song on June 21.

When I zoomed in on the picture

of Jared C. Monti's grave,

he was killed June 21.

- The second she said it,
I got a chill up my body,

because I knew
this is important.

We have got to get
this in the right hands

and the right artist.

And Lee Brice took it all
the way to number one,

which was unbelievable.

But all along, though,
we're fantasizing, thinking,

has that dad heard it?

This guy that said
it on the interview,

is it possible that he's
a country music fan,

that he would hear this song?

- The last time I
talked to my son,

the phone rang.

"Hi Pop, how you doing,
happy Father's Day."

And he was on a satellite
phone in Afghanistan

talking to me.

And we talked for a
while, and then he said,

"Pop, I gotta go, we're
going on a mission."

That was on June 18, 2006.

And he left for the mission,
and three days later,

I had men walking up my driveway

to tell me he had been killed.

That's the Medal of Honor.

- How
did it make you feel

when you heard that
song for the first time?

- Sad.

Tearful.

It was very difficult
to listen to.

I mean, I only got,

I think I only got
partway through the song,

I had to shut it off.

And it's still
pretty much that way.

I still don't get to
get all the way through.

- Have your
other kids heard the song?

- Oh yeah.

Both my daughter and
my son are so hurt

by their brother's death

that they've reacted in--

I'm sorry.

- Paul?
- Yeah.

- Connie Harrington.
- Oh my God in heaven.

- Merry Christmas.

- Is that Jessi?
- Mm-hm.

- It's me and Jessi.

- Oh my God, I can't
believe we're here.

Oh my God.

- They didn't tell me
this was gonna happen.

- [Jessi] Well, we
wanted to surprise you.

- Oh God.

- I'm sorry.

Oh my gosh, here we,

look at you, here we are.

- Those are the mud still
in the bottom of the boots.

- Wow.

- That is unreal.

I know you miss him.

Jerry, sometimes.

- Thank you.
- Thank you, God bless you.

- I miss him.

Everybody's creative
in some way.

Some people cook.

Some people paint.

Some people dance.

That's the connecting piece.

We all have that.

We all have that.

We don't all acknowledge
it, but we all have it.

And that's what songwriting is.

It's being able to
see art in life,

but interpret that in words.

For some people,
that'd be with brushes.

For us, it's words and music.

- At the end of the day,
we're all the same guy.

We're staring at an empty page,

and we're sitting with a guitar,

and we're just trying
to mean something.

If it means something
to somebody else.

- We're more connected
than we all think.

And in this world right now,

I think people are longing to
feel like we're all connected.

So I mean, I think
songwriting is more important

than it's ever been.

- You know, music's
one of the only things

that I know of in the world
that can turn bad into good.

Whatever's the worst thing
that ever happened to you

can become a song that'll
make your life better

and a song that'll
improve the life

of anybody that hears it

who has a shared
common experience.

Or even a sad song can be
good for all kinds of people.

There's not many things
that turn bad into good,

and I get to be
connected to one of them.

- Classic songwriters,
their songs will be around

a lot longer than you or I.

And it's because they're good.

You know, it's that simple.

- If you listen to
Top 40 music today,

how many of those songs
are gonna be around

in 50 years from now?

I think the answer's
probably very few.

And I feel like I
listen to the best songs

that come out of Nashville

are the songs that I
think we'll be singing

100 years from now.

- This is a songwriting
town, period.

Everything else is in
the next paragraph.

- These people are geniuses.

And so I'm proud to
be from Nashville,

because there are more
kinds of music here,

more people doing it on a
real high, professional level

than anywhere in the world.

- There are times when
I could probably make

a little bit more money
doing something else.

But, I just wouldn't be
happy doing something else.

And I don't know how
to do anything else.

- I don't think you write
with this false hope

that you're gonna make it big,
you're gonna make it rich.

I think you write because
that's what you do,

that's what you are.

- This is better than
a royalty check, right,

this moment right here.

It's bigger, better in the
grand scheme of things.

This means more than that
because it's a memory.

We've made a memory.

Instead of money,
we made a memory.

- A song has the power
to soothe your soul.

It has the power
to speak the words

that you don't
know how to speak.

It has the power to give you
hope that you didn't have.

- And I'm ever amazed there's
what, 12 notes, 26 letters,

and I'm ever amazed
because it never fails

that I'll turn on the
radio and go, dah.

I mean, it's like that idea
is so good and so obvious

and done so well.

You would think we'd run
out of things like that.

But not in this town.

- People say, "Well, is
it any harder than it was

"20 years ago in Nashville?"

Yeah, I just tell, it's
always been impossible.

It's always never gonna happen.

It's always nothing
but Catch-22s.

It's always just screwed up
and it's never gonna happen.

And every week, there are
Number One parties for kids,

first Number One
parties for kids.

- Go to a bar with your
friends and drink a beer

with no music going.

You know, just think
of all the things

that very rarely you do
that you don't hear music.

And everybody forgets that
it started with a songwriter.

It started with somebody that
got up and went in a room

and had the nerve to put
their journal to music.

- It's just crazy
that it's an industry,

an industry where you go to work

having no idea what you're
actually going to produce,

and you're gonna take an idea

that's floating around your
head and put it on paper

and make it, you know,
actually concrete,

which turns into,
hopefully, a song,

which turns into a demo,
which turns into maybe,

hopefully a record cut,

which then people
over the world hear.

It's like what, how
is that even a job?

- To go from there's
a song I wrote

that my publisher walked
into the room and said,

"That's a hit," then
five months later

Rhianna wants to cut it,

then I think six months
later, the first time

it's being performed
is at the Grammy's,

and I'm onstage with her.

- There is a kind of
a funny little story

that goes around
amongst songwriters

that the greatest three
songs ever written

in the history of
songwriting are

Amazing Grace, Bridge
Over Troubled Water,

and whatever I just
finished writing.

- One of my favorite
quotes is by Quincy Jones.

And he said, "You need three
things to make a great record.

"Three things.

"The song, the song,
and the song." [laughs]

- The reason I do this is
that I'm chasing a feeling.

I'm chasing the chills.

- It's the best drug.

Besides love, it's the
best drug I can think of.

- The beauty of my
job is that I have no,

I've been doing it for 22 years.

I had 21 number one songs.

And I have no idea what
makes a great song.

- They come from
poets and balladiers,

age-old stories passed
down through the years,

from a little baby's
laughter, from lovers' tears,

and sometimes God just
whispers in your ear.