Rhett Akins remembers thinking 'That Ain't My Truck' as he recalls inspiration behind song

When songwriter Rhett Akins was in high school, he returned from football camp to go visit his girlfriend he hadn't seen in two weeks. When he got to her house he saw something odd in her driveway.

He remembers saying to himself, "That ain't my truck."

But it wasn't until nearly a decade later when Akins was recounting that story that his songwriter friends said, "That's a great idea for a song."

The following is the rest of the Story Behind the Song as told to NSAI Executive Director Bart Herbison.

Akins: "Back then, of course, we didn't have cell phones or anything. You couldn't keep up with who you were dating. You know, it was just like, I'm at football camp here at the beach. I'll see you in two weeks. And when camp was over with, I drove to the girl's house and there was another pickup truck sitting in her drive."

Akins remembers telling this story to fellow songwriters Tom Shapiro and Chris Watters, who ended up being co-writers on the song.

"I was probably 17 when that happened. I wrote the song when I was 24. And I don't know what triggered that memory, but they said, 'Well, when you saw the other guy's truck, what'd you do?' I said, 'I guess I could have gotten in there and gotten in an altercation with the guy, but I just said 'That ain't my truck' and kept driving on.

"I never meant to say 'that ain't my truck' as a song title. I was just talking and both of them looked at me and go,  'what did you just say?' And I said, 'I don't know.' And they were like, 'you said that ain't your truck or something.' I  said, yeah, 'that ain't my truck.' So I just kept driving on. And they were like, 'that's a great idea for a song.' And so  that was, the seed of that song being written."

Not all great songs are written in a day

Herbison: "And my guess is with that seed, it happened pretty quickly. Did you all finish it that day?"

RA: "We did not. Maybe, because we talked so much the first day. I remember specifically going back and finishing that song the next day. So I think we wrote the first verse and chorus and then probably wrote the second verse the next day. But that doesn't happen a lot these days. A lot of times we're so in a rush that if you don't finish the song in three to four hours, everybody's  like, I don't know if this is any good. But I think back in those days, we spent a lot more time on the songs and, you know, didn't write them so fast. I know for sure that was a two-day write."

'That Ain't My Truck' still resonates nearly 30 years later

BH: "I think I hear the song more today than when it came out in ... '95. Does the continued success of it surprise you?"

RA: "It does because it was a big hit when it came out, but most of the times, you know, songs do what they do during their lifetime and then they just kind-of fade off. For some reason, this one got more popular as the years went by. I think it did what it did in the '90s. And then it was just kind-of a song some people remembered throughout the late '90s and 2000, but it started about 2010 again. And it just hit a resurgence  especially in the cover band world.

"I get tons of videos from friends all the time to say 'Hey, man, I'm out somewhere in Kansas City and the band's playing your song'...  I guess  heartache  never  goes  out  of  style."

About the series

In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the "Story Behind the Song" video interview series features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions. For full video interviews with all our subjects, visit www.tennessean.com/music.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rhett Akins: 'That Ain't My Truck' is true story of young breakup