“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
It’s amusing to think modern-day cowboy Cody Johnson has much in common with an ancient Chinese philosopher. And yet his current single — “The Fall,” released by Warner Music Nashville to country radio on April 10 — mirrors thoughts about life and resilience expressed by Confucius around 500 years B.C. Johnson’s performance may hinge metaphorically on a rodeo experience, but its meaning resonates beyond the arena and across the centuries.
“When I heard the song, it sounded like the story of a lot of different people,” he says. “It is kind of cowboy, and it is authentic to me, as ‘The ride was worth the fall,’ you know. ‘I’d climb back on again.’ But it also has this relativity to a lot of other different people and their story. It’s a very unique thing that I couldn’t ignore.”
Songwriter Bobby Pinson (“Burning Man,” “It Happens”) came up with the hook, “The ride was worth the fall,” in 2021. That line would lead to a connected thought — “The fall was worth the smiles” is the next line in the chorus — and the chorus would build one step at a time with each phrase borrowing from its predecessor.
“There was definitely the ankle-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone theory going,” Pinson recalls. “That’s what I call it when one thing causes the other.”
That summer, with a wave of COVID-19 bubbling in Nashville, he booked a Zoom co-write with Jeremy Stover (“Time’s Ticking,” “You’re Like Comin’ Home”) and Ray Fulcher (“When It Rains It Pours,” “Lovin’ on You”), who was signed as an artist at the time with Black River and was about to head out on a radio promotion tour. Fulcher had no idea when he would be free to write again. He told his co-writers that since he might be opening a new chapter, he wanted to close this one with something meaningful. Fulcher had been enamored as a kid with the movie 8 Seconds about rodeo star Lane Frost, so “The Fall” had the potential to turn a personal interest into a universal lesson. The writers hinted at the sport, but avoided obvious words, such as “rodeo,” “horse,” “rope” or even “cowboy.”
“We wanted it to feel that way, without all of those pictures,” Fulcher explains. “We thought it would be cooler if we could say all that stuff without saying it.”
They dug in on the chorus first, constructing a melody that matched the lyrical idea. Each line would peak a half-step or full step higher than the previous one as the story built toward a new plateau. The chorus reached a crescendo about three-quarters through, then subsided in intensity as it circled back to a repetition of the original line, “The ride was worth the fall.”
“I think that aspect of it is a big part of the song,” Stover says, “the way the melody goes with the lyric — especially the way it goes into the minor [chord] at the end of the hook.”
Turning their attention to the verses, they similarly used a minor chord to launch a dark, conversational melody as the character confessed some of his failings.
“That’s life,” Stover suggests. “We obviously know no one is perfect, and that aspect of life, I think a lot of people relate to.”
The melody turned almost bouncy in the fourth and fifth lines of the verse — just enough to enhance the sing-along quality — then returned to a serious tone, setting up the impactful chorus. After piling up nebulous, non-rodeo images — alcohol abuse, arrogance, spiritual shortcomings — the first verse’s final line set up the chorus with a bronco-busting notion: “even when I fell off.”
“Everybody’s been through these things,” Pinson says, “and the key to a good song, to me, is to put things in there that people can use to their own advantage or insert into their own life. It’s not necessarily my stories or my pictures. It’s just my paint for somebody else’s painting.”
As they wrapped, Fulcher felt like they had written the significant kind of song he had desired.
“It was pretty emotional — not every write is — to kind of dig into some of those parts of yourself that have felt the same way,” he says.
Subsequently, while Fulcher was on a radio tour, Pinson and Stover produced a demo that made its way to producer Trent Willmon (Granger Smith, Drake Milligan). “The Fall” reminded Willmon of Garth Brooks. “It felt like it could be a song like Garth’s ‘The Dance,’ but in a little more cowboy sort of language,” Willmon says. “And Cody loved it.”
Still, Johnson remained “on the fence about the song,” he says, fearful that it might sound like “’Til You Can’t, Part II.” Willmon, Johnson remembers, talked him into moving forward with it:
“His exact words were, ‘You’re at a point in your career where, if you want to record songs to try them on, record them. Try them on, and if you don’t like them afterward, we’re good. We just wasted a little time in the studio, and it’s OK.’ ”
They cut it at the Starstruck Studios in Nashville with a band that included drummer Jerry Roe, bassist Mike Brignardello, keyboardist Jim “Moose” Brown, acoustic guitarist Tim Galloway, steel guitarist Scotty Sanders and electric guitarists James Mitchell and Justin Ostrander. The demo gave them a good road map, though Johnson asked them to cut the tempo just a bit and to play with a tougher vibe.
“It needed that kind of ‘pump your chest out and be proud’ aspect,” Johnson says. “When we explained that to the band, I’d been kind of playing with the little acoustic riff at the beginning. Obviously, the players that played on the track were better than me, so they took it and ran with it.”
In the process, they scrapped a bridge and replaced it with Ostrander’s scene-changing solo. Johnson sang full-throated on every pass.
“The great thing about a great band is they’re paying attention not just to the numbers that are written on the chart, but they’re paying attention to the lyric and they’re listening to the singer,” Willmon says. “I think a lot of the changes that happened during tracking was because Cody was in there singing it with all this raw power and emotion and they’re feeling it. So that dictates a lot of how that band plays.”
Fiddler Jenee Fleenor overdubbed a pile of parts, creating a string section in the process. Willmon and Greg Barnhill provided backing vocals, and the song emerged as a fan favorite at concerts. It’s at No. 50 in its second week on Country Airplay as it establishes a home on the airwaves, seemingly fulfilling its destiny.
“It was not a single, we hadn’t pushed it, and I started noticing when I played ‘The Fall,’ as soon as I started playing the guitar [intro], every cell phone in the audience came up,” Johnson says. “After the first chorus, when I sing ‘The ride was worth the fall,’ the crowd goes insane. It feels like this song has already been on radio.”
Now, “The Fall” begins its rise.
