Jake Gray knows how to defy the odds.
The Knoxville, Tennessee singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist witnessed that feat firsthand from his brother and penned a song about it.
“When I wrote ‘Rode Hard,’ it comes from a saying, ‘Rode and put away wet.’ It was a saying back on the farm, and I wrote that song about my brother. And when I wrote it, I thought, ‘This is gonna be the title track,’” said Gray about the song from his latest Americana album of the same name.
“Some of those lines are right out of his life, so when I go, ‘Let me tell you about a tale / Of a man whose life didn’t go so well.’ That’s how that track opens up.”
Throughout “Rode Hard,” Gray highlights how his brother overcame divorce, past mistakes and health challenges to emerge as a stronger and wiser person on the other side.
Alongside determined acoustic guitar, violin and drums, Gray sings, “He finally thinks he’s made enough mistakes / But he’s come a long, long, long way / So I ask him what’s he gonna do / He says take some time, forget my pride and switch out my point of view.”
“I did try to leave [the song] on a positive note on the bridge and the outro, ‘It doesn’t matter what’s gone before / Just pick yourself right off that floor’ and then off you go. You don’t have to be married to what happened to you before,” he said.
“He does like [the song], and he recognized himself straightaway. Last year, he had open heart surgery, which is a culmination of a lifetime of bad choices of how [he was] treating [his] body. He survived that, and then a few months later, he had acute pancreatitis. He quit drinking, and he works out like an animal; he’s still working to get his head right.”
The Stratton Setlist 