Over the past couple of years, a lot of people have asked me how I got into songwriting. It's a fair question because, after spending most of my life in the automobile business and the last twenty-five years on the radio, writing songs probably seemed to come out of nowhere.
The funny thing is, I don't think it did.
In fact, the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to believe I didn't really start writing songs a couple of years ago. I think I've been writing them my entire life. It just took me a long time to figure out that they were songs.
When I look back at the ones I've written, none of them are really about the subjects in the titles. Black Tape On My Badge isn't really about a police uniform. It's about sacrifice. Still Worth Fighting For isn't really about a flag. It's about the people who have defended it. They Came Here For The Soccer isn't really about a sporting event. It's about opening our country to the world and discovering that, despite our differences, people aren't all that different after all.
Even Why Can't Everybody See It? wasn't really about America. It was about hope.
That got me thinking about something else.
For years, you've been kind enough to read my newsletter closing messages, and before that, you've listened to me on the radio every Saturday. Looking back over those stories, I realized they all seem to circle back to the same place. Whether I was writing about selling my last dealership, Saturdays on a showroom floor, Alan Mulally, BJ, a water well in India, or a listener who simply needed someone to answer a question, the stories were never really about cars.
They were about people.
More specifically, they were about people who quietly make the world a little better without asking for recognition. I've always admired those people.
The salesperson who stays until midnight because a customer needs to finish a deal.
The technician who catches something nobody else noticed because he refuses to let an unsafe car leave his shop.
The widow who summons the courage to buy a car by herself for the first time.
The young couple trying to do the responsible thing instead of the exciting thing.
The listener named Rusty, whom I've never met, who helped drill a water well halfway around the world in memory of my son BJ. Rusty didn't do it because anyone asked him to. He certainly didn't do it for recognition. He did it because kindness was simply the next right thing to do. I've been fortunate to know a lot of people like that.
Joe, who taught a young kid what treating people with respect looked like.
Dick, whose quiet leadership influenced everyone around him.
BJ my Son, who understood that customers never cared how much you knew until they knew how much you cared.
Alan Mulally, who proved that leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about creating an environment where people can succeed together.
If you think about it, every one of them was singing the same song. Not with music. With their lives.
Maybe that's why songwriting has become so meaningful to me. It isn't because I suddenly discovered a hidden talent. It's because I finally found another way to tell the kinds of stories I've always wanted to tell. A three-minute song and an thirteen thousand-word newsletter article aren't all that different. Both try to remind us of something worth remembering. Both try to celebrate the people who don't always make the headlines. Both try to leave the world just a little more hopeful than they found it.
I've never been interested in writing songs about celebrities or politics or the latest controversy. Those things come and go. What lasts are the people who keep showing up, keep doing the right thing, keep serving others, and keep making a difference when nobody is watching. Our first responders do this every single day.
Those are the stories that deserve to be told. Maybe that's because they're the stories that have shaped my own life.
The older I get, the less interested I am in telling people what to think and the more interested I become in reminding them what really matters. Hard work. Integrity. Kindness. Faith. Family. Service. Those values have been at the center of everything I've ever done, whether I was standing on a showroom floor, sitting behind a microphone, or now, trying to put those thoughts into a song.
So, when someone asks me how I got into songwriting, I think I'll answer a little differently from now on. I'll tell them I didn't.
I've been writing the same song my whole life.
I just finally started putting it to music.
Straight Talk and Honest Answers — always.
-Jerry