“I’m not writing a song. It’s my day off.” That was Jeffrey Steele’s response when fellow co-writer, Ira Dean called him one fateful morning and asked the Nashville Hall of Fame songwriter what he was doing that day. Dean explained that he was over writing with rocker turned country star Aaron Lewis and they needed him to write a song. Steele explained during Breitbart/SiriusXM’s American Songwriter Special that Dean told him Lewis wanted to write a song specifically for his fans. Steele’s response: “I only got 2 hours.”
The setting upon Steele entering Lewis’s house was not what one might think of to get into creative mode: Three TVs set to CNN, MSNBC and FOX News. Lewis was shaking his head and going off on the news and said to his co-writers “they’re never gonna play me on the radio. They don’t like what I’m saying.” This song was gonna be for his fans….and his fans were small-town America. Half-way through the writing of “Am I the Only One?” the songwriters had a feeling they might just have something. And they did.
A little while later, Steele got a call from Dean who was on the road with Lewis. Lewis was playing the song for his fans for the first time, looking at his IPAD as he sung. He had not memorized the lyrics yet. But small-town America had and they sang along and at some points, over Lewis.
Steele, Lewis, and Dean were the first ones through the door with a song that called out the Left in such a powerful way that it went to #1 on the Billboard charts with no radio play, paving the way for the conservative fight back songs that would follow, while demonstrating the strength and passion of small-town America.
Breitbart caught wind of “Am I the Only One?” early and charted its meteoric rise.
