{"id":1318630,"date":"2020-03-09T08:12:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T14:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1818867"},"modified":"2020-03-09T08:12:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T14:12:43","slug":"the-actual-ashtray-that-inspired-i-drive-your-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/the-actual-ashtray-that-inspired-i-drive-your-truck\/","title":{"rendered":"The Actual Ashtray That Inspired \u201cI Drive Your Truck\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span>
\n27m ago<\/span>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

Before I knew the name of Lee Brice\u2019s \u201cI Drive Your Truck,\u201d I just thought of it as the 89-cents-in-the-ashtray song. Because that\u2019s the lyric that opens the song, and immediately paints a picture of heartbreak so vividly. <\/p>\n

In 2014, \u201cI Drive Your Truck\u201d won the Academy of Country Music Award for song of the year, which is awarded to the songwriters, Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, and Jimmy Yeary.<\/p>\n

And when I caught up<\/a> with Alexander recently, she told me the full-length version of the story behind that song. <\/p>\n

\u201cConnie Harrington was driving and listening to NPR \u2014 which shows you mind of songwriter \u2014 and she heard an interviewer ask a man who had lost his son in Afghanistan what he was going to do that day to honor his son,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2019I don\u2019t know what else to do but drive his truck.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Then when Harrington shared that inkling of an idea with Alexander, things got real real fast. <\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s where it gets heavy,\u201d she told me. \u201cConnie writes that idea on a Post-it note, and then divine intervention happens. I just happen to be in the songwriting room, even though I don\u2019t want to be there because I\u2019m pregnant with twins and it\u2019s hot. But when Connie tells me the title, I had a lightning bolt go through my body. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my grandmother was so grief-stricken by my granddaddy\u2019s death when I was ten, that she left his truck parked at our Jackson, Tennessee house. I would get in it as a child just to play. And I\u2019d see the coins in the ashtray and his tool belt in the back seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filling in the blanks on the rest of the ballad, Alexander said, felt like a cosmic thing was happening. <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that truck. I lived that truck,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd this song was a chance for me to dig into my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embedded from www.youtube.com<\/a>.