Thursday night (February 22), Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and several industry insiders gathered at the Tin Roof in downtown Nashville to celebrate a trio of No. 1 singles—“Save Me,” “Need a Favor,” and “Watermelon Moonshine.”
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Each artist took the stage to celebrate the success of their respective songs. However, the highlight of the night was, arguably, when Jelly Roll and Wilson came together with songwriter David Ray to celebrate their joint No. 1 “Save Me.” While doing so, they reflected on what the song meant to them.
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Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson Reflect on “Save Me”
“I want to explain something to y’all that I think is important. ‘Save Me’ was special, like, to me. But I don’t fully grasp as an artist that sometimes songs mean so much to us. To some degree, we don’t really care what it does outside of that. It’s more about the actual art,” Jelly Roll explained. “This is my story. This is my most vulnerable, broken moment ever. And 200 million people have now watched it on YouTube.
“I had been a fan of the song for a long time,” Wilson said. “I knew that before I had even really, like, officially met [Jelly Roll] I knew that he was just my kind of people. When I heard that they were interested in me doing the female part of the song, I was like, ‘Man, it’s cool to hear the female perspective of this.’”
The Success of “Save Me” Was a Surprise
Jelly Roll co-wrote the song with his longtime friend and collaborator David Ray and released it as a single from his album Self-Medicated in 2020. However, it didn’t see success until he released the re-recorded version featuring Wilson as a single from Whitsitt Chapel.
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“Me and David Ray have known each other for twenty-something years,” Jelly Roll said. He went on to say that they were able to bond over growing up poor. “We were both dreamers from the time we met,” he added. “When we wrote ‘Save Me’ nobody could have ever told us it was going to be a No. 1 song, nobody could have told us it was going to do 200 and something million views on YouTube, nobody could convince us that not only would Lainey Wilson get on this song, she would get on this song the same year she would go on be the CMA Entertainer of the Year, the same year she would go on to win a Grammy for Country Album of the Year.”
Featured Image by Catherine Powell/Getty Images for Spotify
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