“I Drive Your Truck” by Lee Brice

Credit: urbancountrynews.com

“I Drive Your Truck,” a 2012 country song recorded by Lee Brice and written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, and Jimmy Yeary, addresses the grief of the song’s narrator who has lost his brother. During the chorus, Brice croons the heartbreaking lyrics:

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
‘Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes (Brother, sometimes)
I drive your truck

Co-writer Connie Harrington was inspired to pen the lyrics after listening to an interview on NPR’s “Here and Now” program with a father who had lost his son in Afghanistan. The father being interviewed was Paul Monti and his son was Sergeant Jared Monti, who had died trying to save the life of one of his soldiers. When Monti’s unit was attacked by insurgents, the other soldier was wounded. Monti tried to save him three times before he was killed in action. President Obama signed the authorization for Monti to posthumously receive the Medal of Honor — the United States Military’s highest decoration for valor. The medal was presented to Jared Monti’s family in a ceremony at the White House.

Credit: thenewswheel.com

In the interview, Paul Monti said of his son’s truck: “What can I tell you? It’s him. It’s got his DNA all over it. I love driving it because it reminds me of him, though I don’t need the truck to remind me of him. I think about him every hour of every day.” Moved to tears listening to the interview on the radio in her car, Connie Harrington pulled over to the side of the road and scribbled notes as she listened to the rest of the story. With the help of two co-writers, she finished the song, which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

Paul Monti heard the song when a woman whose son had died in the same battle Jared died in sent him a Facebook message telling him to listen to it. The woman drove her son’s truck and knew that Paul drove Jared’s truck. When Paul first listened to the song, he couldn’t get through the whole thing. He told NPR: “I’d get into it a few bars or so and kind of welled up.” He still had no idea that it was his own story that had inspired the song. In the meantime, Connie Harrington was trying to track Paul down. She finally succeeded, and in 2013 Paul flew to Nashville to meet the songwriters and celebrate the song’s success.

The raw, tragic lyrics of the bridge are my favorite part of this heart-wrenching tune. Brice’s voice swells as he sings:

I’ve cussed, I’ve prayed, I’ve said goodbye
Shook my fist and asked God why
These days when I’m missin’ you this much.

You can watch the music video for Lee Brice’s “I Drive Your Truck” below.