Ep. 259: Jessi Alexander on Writing "The Climb" The Week She Almost Quit... + What It Takes To Last as a Nashville Songwriter

Today's guest wrote "The Climb." She also wrote "I Drive Your Truck," "Mine Would Be You," "Don't Think Jesus," and "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma." But her real story isn't the hits. It's the ten years before the first one, the five years after it when the phone stopped ringing, and what she figured out in between about how to actually last in this business.

From a dropped record deal and years as what she calls a washed-up artist nobody would write with, to Song of the Year, a Grammy nomination, and a run of hits she wrote while raising three kids under three. She carries three things at once that almost no writer figures out how to hold together: a working method she can actually teach, a conviction that this is a calling and not a job, and a refusal to write the safe version of anything.

And The Writer Is... Jessi Alexander!

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0:00 Intro

0:48 Her favorite non-songwriting songwriter trick

1:54 "How do you make unavailable country men emotional?"

5:33 The five songs on her Hall of Fame plaque

11:07 Pool halls and stick shifts: "that color is what I draw from"

12:42 The artist deal that fizzled — "I wasn't the artist type"

13:31 No man's land: "no one took me seriously, I was a washed-up artist"

14:01 The insane story behind writing The Climb: "just another damn day"

20:11 Bud Light, a guitar pull, and a British director

22:07 Being told The Climb would change her life "Sir, that doesnt happen to people like me"

28:08 Nashville still said No

30:38 Getting men to sing: long notes and the falsetto flip

31:44 "What part of their tool belt have they not used?"

34:32 The professor who told her to quit school

36:18 Her album, the mergers, and Redneck Woman

40:27 New mom: "they'll just put someone else in my spot"

45:30 Good mom or good at work — never both

46:16 2015 to 2020: "the water just turned off"

48:23 Advice for the writer whose phone stopped ringing

50:24 The song that rang every bell

57:21 Concept-first or melody-first: "I'm the director"

61:16 Songwriters own it. Screenwriters sell it.

64:16 Imposter syndrome and the Billy Strings answer

65:24 What makes Morgan Wallen great

69:46 "I don't like to not know where all the bodies are buried"

71:43 I Drive Your Truck (Crazy story)

74:37 Her granddad's truck in the driveway

75:44 "Call in the third. Call in the fourth. Call in the 10th."

76:46 No #1 party until they found him

80:36 The truck-song traffic jam they were worried sick about

85:38 "Keep your head down." Still the only answer.

Credits:

Hosted by Ross Golan

Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.