Makin’ Tracks: ‘Heart Like A Truck’ Fueled by Beatles Influence and Lainey Wilson’s Independence

When Lainey Wilson took her first trip to No. 1 (on the Country Airplay chart dated Sept. 25, 2021) the vehicle was “Things a Man Oughta Know,” a song that uses tomboy imagery to convey a woman’s yearning for maturity in a relationship.

She has made another visit to the summit since then, joining Cole Swindell for a two-week stay with “Never Say Never,” starting April 30. But her newest single, “Heart Like a Truck” is rightly seen as a continuation of her previous solo release: “Truck” once again employs a stance that’s more commonly associated with males — an itch for adventure despite a difficult series of bumps — but it’s flexible enough in its approach to represent both a woman’s love life and a dedication to the uncertain path of a creative career.

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“All of us go through things in life, and that’s what it’s about,” she says. “It’s about celebrating the things that make you stronger, better on the other side of it. So it is a little bit about where I began, but also more importantly about where I’m going.”

Lainey wrote “Heart Like a Truck” on Oct. 6, 2020 (exactly 10 weeks after Broken Bow released “Things a Man Oughta Know” to radio via PlayMPE), based on a title that songwriter Trannie Anderson (“Can’t Do Without Me”) conceived of during a walk the day before their appointment at the home studio of Dallas Wilson (“Nobody”).

“I was the driver of the ‘Truck,’” says Anderson with a laugh. “I knew that writing it as a metaphor consistently throughout the song was probably the best way to go about it, but it took twists and turns. We didn’t write it exactly how I came in with it.”

In the initial stages, it was more of a grinder, befitting lyrics that could easily apply to the elusive-rambler archetype in Southern rock material by Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Marshall Tucker Band. But Lainey thought it would work better in a more thoughtful setting, so they started over again almost entirely from scratch. “Everyone was just kind of freestyling melodies, and the whole kind of layout of that chorus started happening,” Dallas recalls. “I feel like we were all pretty excited and really clicked when we realized we were going to write it in more of a vulnerable way.”

They developed just enough of the chorus to know where they were headed, then dug in on the front end of “Heart Like a Truck,” giving the song a base coat that compares the singer’s emotional life to free-wheeling through a muddy field, replete with the rough ride and mucked-up mudflaps that would entail.

By the time they got to verse two, the adventure turns to the open road — “no brakin’,” an attempt to “keep it in between the lines” and a “pedal-down state of mind.” That interstate kind of full-throttle experience is different than a back-road spin, representative of Lainey’s own shift from a dirt-road youth to a tour-bus adult lifestyle.

In between the verses, they created a chorus that works like two stacked-up stanzas. It starts with a halting, toned-down “I got a heart … like … a truck …,” slowly growing in fuel and intensity through four lines until it reaches its top emotional speed in a proclamation of freedom: “It’s got a lead foot down when it’s leavin’.”

“I’ve never written a song dynamically that goes so down in the front half of the chorus and really revs up melodically and [energy-wise] on the back half,” says Dallas. “That’s kind of a different thing than we’re used to, but it just felt good.”

They gave it a bridge, too, that treated her truck-like heart as a challenge to a potential suitor: “See if you can knock off the dust.”

“I think that when Lainey finds the right guy, Lainey wants to be in love and have a great love story,” Anderson says. “But she’s not going to change who she is to fall in love with someone.” Dallas built a demo around Lainey’s performance, playing all the instrumental parts except for keyboard. That was handled by Alex Wright, who also invented a syncopated riff that became a theme throughout the song.

Lainey introduced it to producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Brothers Osborne) in a guitar/vocal performance before they cut it at his Neon Cross Studio in the spring of 2021, with the Fab Four’s orchestral side providing extra sonic inspiration. “We thought it would just be really cool to kind of blend that sort of Beatle-y/Electric Light Orchestra thing with that funky, old hippie, Jerry Reed-era type music,” says Joyce. “She really does have that old soul/Southern-rock kind of thing to her vibe, so the two married really well together.”

Aslan Freeman, from Lainey’s road band, established a vacillating acoustic guitar current; Rob McNelley contributed George Harrison-like twin slide guitars; and Billy Justineau offered tremolo keyboard over Fred Eltringham’s understated drum part. Bassist Joel King of The Wild Feathers added an assertive foundational thread that sounds — at the close of the bridge — like Carol Kaye’s high-on-the-frets performance on Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman.”

“That’s his style,” Joyce says. “He’s got this old, beat-up Harmony bass. That’s all he comes in with — doesn’t even bring a case — and that’s just what Joel does. I mean, we’re definitely going for that sound. So many of these players in town, they just have that same Fender Precision, great big, giant bass sound, but it’s so boring. And Joel really gives it a fresh thing.”

Joyce enhanced Wright’s original instrumental riff, mixing electric keyboard with a vibraphone for a glassy sound, and he changed the chord structure underneath the bridge, creating an ascendant, chromatic progression that assimilates Split Enz’s 1980 new wave classic “I Got You.” He added another Beatles callback by topping the production with a staccato, synth-string sound a la “Eleanor Rigby.”

“I just came up with that change to sort of separate it from the rest of the song,” says Joyce. “It also lends itself more to that sort of beautiful string thing.”

It required a lyrical change to the bridge, and Lainey worked that out by texting with Dallas and Anderson when she cut the song’s final vocals. The new closing line to that stanza emphasized the lure of the road as she gets a “high ridin’ off into the sun.” Lainey’s performance was appropriately dramatic, climaxing with a long note that extended across nearly two measures in the last chorus.

“I done messed up and got to do it the rest of my life,” she says with a laugh. “It’s so long you could run to the bathroom, and I’m like, ‘What did I do?’ I’ll be 70 years old trying to get this note. But I can do it. I’ve been doing it in all my live shows and stuff. I have to warm up a little bit more than I normally do, but that’s not a bad thing.”

“Heart Like a Truck” was envisioned as an immediate follow-up to “Things a Man Oughta Know,” but when the Swindell collaboration popped up, the label delayed “Truck” until the other single ran its course. “Truck” finally arrived via PlayMPE on May 19, and is parked at No. 40 on the Country Airplay chart dated June 18. As it builds, it reinforces Lainey’s persona as an independent woman with a strong sense of her personal, and cultural, past.

“I’m proud of the dents and the scratches and the bumps along the way that have gotten me to this point,” she says. “I wouldn’t be who I am without them.”

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