There was a guy in my community where I grew up
named James McNutt, and he was a veteran.
He was married to my daddy's first cousin.
And I'd known him for most all my life.
And after he got out of the service,
he became a mechanic and was really good at it.
And so anytime my truck broke down,
I'd go to him and Mr. James would get me up and running.
And he was just a joy to be around.
When I found out he had died,
it hurt,
obviously,
but I couldn't make it home for the funeral
because we were out on the road.
So my daddy actually ended up being one
of the pallbearers at Mr. James' funeral.
So my parents sent me the program,
or the bulletin,
from the funeral and just got to
looking through it.
And I saw my daddy's name under the list of pallbearers.
And I don't know,
it just kind of,
that word hit me in an
interesting way.
And it never left me.
I wrote it down,
and it just,
every day I thought about it.
And so when I had the chance to,
I just sat down and just
kind of allowed that story to come to my mind.
And obviously,
it's not about Mr. James,
but it's a story
about how lonesome can one person feel.
And I was just thinking,
being a pallbearer at a funeral
is pretty lonesome.
So I tried to liken this guy being dumped on by this girl
to a pallbearer.
And I just thought it was an interesting metaphor.
And honestly,
I didn't throw that out there as a possible
choice for songs to go on the record.
I just turned it into publishing.
My producer, Frank Rogers,
and Brian Wright, my head of A&R at the label,
they both were like,
this is the coolest song we've heard in a long time.
And it kind of blew me awake.