Exclusive — Nashville Hall of Famer Jeffrey Steele Explains How He Defied Music Industry Gatekeepers to Deliver His Latest Hit ‘A Voice’
Nashville Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Jeffrey Steele told Breitbart Daily News Host Mike Slater explained Monday how he challenged country music industry insiders who encouraged him to change the lyrics of his hit new song “A Voice,” insisting they could help him get the song on the radio and into the mainstream if he changed the section honoring slain conservative icon Charlie Kirk.
“When I started playing the song, the first thing, there was a line about Charlie Kirk,” Steele told Slater, referring to the lyric “Charlie Kirk’s choir light all our lighters, finally wake up.”
“And so the first thing people in the industry told me was, well, man, we can help you promote this, but you have to, you have to change that line,” Steele explained, saying he was told “Yeah, we can’t, we can’t go on the radio if you have that line.”
“Can you imagine?” Steele asked Slater. “You can’t go on country music radio if you have a line about how the country feels. And I’m like, what are you talking about? I’m not going to change the line of the song. Are you kidding me? And I just said no, thanks. No, thanks, I’ll do it myself.”
The result? It’s “exploding,” Steele said.
“It just blew up on iTunes,” Steele said of the anthem, which he said is about Americans who feel like they no longer have a voice in this country — soldiers, police officers, nurses, farmers, parents and others who feel underrepresented and misrepresented today.
“We released it this weekend, it’s already gone to number four [on the iTunes chart]. And so today is like the official day that we leave. And it’s already blowing up the rankings,” Steele said.
The country crooner thought early on that he had something special with “A Voice,” given the raw reaction he received from audiences every time he performed the song on the road.
Jeffrey Steele said he originally planned to write “A Voice” for another artist with an incredible voice. And of course, it’s something he’s done hundreds of times over the course of his incredible, decades-spanning career. He wrote hit songs like “My Wish” and “What Hurts the Most” for Rascal Flatts, “The Cowboy in Me” for Tim McGraw, and most recently Aaron Lewis’ Democratic hit “Am I the Only One?” which went to #1 on the Billboard charts without any mainstream radio airplay.
But this one was different. Steele says his good friend John Rich encouraged him to record “A Voice” and turn it into his own hit song.
“I swear it’s every night, like I get to the final note of the song, before the big note and people are waiting to respond,” Steele told Slater of the audience reaction when he performed “A Voice” live. “And then I get to the big note and they stand up. And I’ve never seen that in all my years. I get to the end of the song and, and people say, you can tell people they just want me to end it so they can stand up and clap.”
Steele encourages fans to purchase and download the song on iTunes.
He told Slater that he really needs fans to “download iTunes. I mean, you can access all your streaming channels, but iTunes is the best because it shows up on the music charts that way as a purchase. And it just lights up the numbers on the chart. Because we’re completely independent, no label. So we have to keep showing the numbers to stay in the game.”
PURCHASE or STREAM A VOICE HERE
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A VOICE – Lyrics
I’m the soldier, I fought and died for you
I gave up my life
To give you the right,
live the life you choose
I’m the farmer, here dying on the vine
Trying to feed your family,
barely feed mine
I swear to God sometimes
I wish I had a voice
I would increase it now
For all the silencers,
no one seems to care
Speak for us all,
Turn up the volume,
and let the simple truth cut through the noise
I wish I had a voice
I am the heroic frontline nurse.
I give everything I have
They praised me until the day I said what I thought
and I lost my job
Third generation cop,
proud to wear this badge
But it’s hard to keep the bad guys away, with my hands behind my back
I wonder what my father would think
I wish I had a voice
I would increase it now
For all the silencers,
no one seems to care
Speak for us all,
Turn up the volume,
and let the simple truth cut through the noise
I wish I had a voice
I’m the trucker, they’re gradually disappearing
She’s a housewife, but you can’t say that now
I’m a laid-off factory worker heading to China.
We are the coal miners, the firefighters,
Charlie Kirk’s choir lights all our lighters,
Finally, when we woke up, we had enough of the Liars setting the world on fire.
We are the children, crying for help,
millions of miles from home and who cannot speak for ourselves.
Will you be our voice
Do you want to increase it now
For all the silencers,
no one seems to care
Speak for all of us, turn up the volume and let the simple truth cut through the noise.
Will you be
Yes, I will be
I will be your voice
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