I Drive Your Truck

[2012]
Songwriters: Connie Harrington / Jimmy Yeary / Jessi Alexander
Album: Hard 2 Love



I Drive Your Truck is a song written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, and Jimmy Yeary, and recorded by American country music singer Lee Brice. It is the third single from his 2012 album Hard 2 Love.

The song is a ballad about the narrator driving a truck owned by his brother, who died in action in the United States Army. Co-writer Connie Harrington was inspired to write it after seeing an interview about parents who had lost their son in the war, and the mother or father (discrepancy in different articles) coped with the loss of their military son by driving his truck.

Taste of Country gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, with Billy Dukes saying that "Brice's strong lyrical performance[…]should broaden the story's scope, making it a big hit commercially and artistically." Tammy Ragusa of Country Weekly gave the single an A grade. She said that Brice "sings it like his life depends on it" and praised the detail of the lyrics.



Lee Brice is bringing country music listeners to their knees with his new single, "I Drive Your Truck". The poignant tune details how the narrator of the song deals with the death of his brother while in combat overseas. The song was inspired by a real-life situation that songwriter Connie Harrington heard about, and with the help of Jimmy Yeary and Jessi Alexander, the emotional ballad was born.

"I got a call from Connie Harrington who said that her and Jessi Alexander had a song title that they thought would be a good song for a guy," Yeary recalls to Roughstock. "Connie said that she saw an interview where a family had lost a son in the war. In the interview, the father was asked how he coped with the son's passing. He said he drove his truck. They thought 'I Drive Your Truck' would be a great song to write and wanted to know if I wanted to be a part of it. I was instantly in.

"We got together a few days later, and Connie had a couple of things written down", Yeary continues. "She had something to do with change in the ashtray and something to do with the dogtags hanging from the mirror. We had a few of those, and then we started messing with the melody. We were just off and running.

"We just started trying to describe the inside of what the truck might look like of somebody that age. Connie was very emotional. She cried the whole time we wrote this song. Me and Jessi kind of joked that any line we threw out, if it didn't tear her up, it must not be right!

"I'm always a little apprehensive about writing these songs," adds Yeary, who is also a writer on Martina McBride's "I'm Gonna Love You Through It" – a song about a husband's promise to help be his wife's foundation as she battles breast cancer. "I love them, but I'm always like, who's going to cut them? They're a little bit sad and it's hard to get people to go there sometimes. As we got to the second verse, we really started realizing there was really something special about this song."