In 2001, Trace Adkins released “I’m Tryin’”, a song written by Jeffrey Steele, Anthony Smith, and Chris Wallin. On Adkins’ Chrome album, “I’m Tryin’” became a Top 10 hit for Adkins.
Surprisingly, it was “3 Seconds”, a duet between Sammy Kershaw and Lorrie Morgan, which inspired Steele to have the idea for I”m Tryin’”. Kershaw and Morgan were married from 2001 to 2007. In 2001, they released I Finally Found Someone, a record of duets between the two singers.
“That morning Chris, Anthony, and I got together to write,” Steele tells The Boot. “I had these words floating around in the back of my mind; I didn’t even think it was a song. I was just kind of walking around that whole day singing, ‘All I can do is all I can do, and I keep on tryin’ …’ It was very Beatles-ish, for lack of a better term. I’m a big Beatles fan.
“We were asked to write a song for the Sammy Kershaw and Lorrie Morgan duet album,” he adds. “I hate when I get forced to write something for a certain project, because it’s hard to be real. We spent the whole day forcing these words together.”
What Jeffrey Steele Says About Writing “I’m Tryin’” for Trace Adkins
The three did write “3 Seconds”, although Steele was still fixated on what became “I’m Tryin’” for Adkins.
“After we finished [‘3 Seconds’], a couple of guys from the publishing company came in and wanted Chris, Anthony, and I to go to this party. I said, ‘Man, I’d love to go, but I have this thing I want to play for these guys to see if they’re interested in staying late and writing it.’”
Fortunately for the writers and for Adkins, Steele came up with other lines like, “This getting up early, pulling double shifts, gonna make an old man of me long before I ever get rich.” The lyric immediately resonated with Wallin and Smith.
“Chris looked at me, and his eyes were bugged out,” Steele recounts. “He says, ‘Man, I love that!’ He immediately just spit out the second line about, ‘It’s been two years since we’ve finalized, and I still ain’t used to saying ‘ex-wife,’ but I’m tryin’‘.”
Unlike “3 Seconds”, Steele says writing “I’m Tryin’” for Adkins was an easy process.
“It was incredible,” Steele boasts. “It was one of those things where you really felt like you weren’t being creative. We’d spent the day forcing these words together working on this [other] song. And then all of a sudden, we were in the middle of this incredible song.”
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