David Nail's 'If I Could Call' Reflects on the Loss of His Beloved Grandfather: 'He Was My Hero' (Exclusive)

From the moment he wrote his new single “If I Could Call,” David Nail dreaded the day he would perform it for the first time. But last March, the multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter did just that when he played it for the first time on WSM radio.

“I was honestly shocked that I had the ability to pull it off,” Nail, 45, reflected in an interview with PEOPLE. “I was especially shocked to be able to do it for the first time on WSM, given the station’s history and what [WSM Radio host] Bill Cody has meant a lot to me over the years.”

Certainly, the pain behind Nail’s new single remains, as the country music stalwart has yet to play the song live again.

“Three years have passed since then [my grandfather] is gone,” Nail explains of his grandfather’s death in June 2021. “And writing the song wasn’t something I was consciously trying to do. It was just something that fell out.”

Cover of ‘If I Could Call’.

courtesy of David Nail

Written last December, the original song “If I Could Call” touches on the desire to pick up the phone and call those the world has already taken from us.

– If I could call my grandfather again, what would I say? the “Let It Rain” hitmaker questions out loud the original premise of the self-penned song. “From there, I’d say 75% of the song came out effortlessly. And then it was just a matter of trying to make it as perfect as possible without making it too personal a story.”

Still, that is a personal story and one that Nail says can still get him emotional. “It’s still hard to talk about, even now,” Nail says quietly of his grandfather, who lived across the street from him when he was a teenager growing up in southeast Missouri. “He was my hero. He was the greatest man I ever met in my life.”

David Nail.

Mitch Wallis

Certainly, life has not always been easy for Nail, as he has been quite open about his struggle with depression. But through it all, his grandfather always found a way to comfort him.

“[My depression] I never talked about it with my grandfather, but I think he always knew that he had this ability to comfort and light up any dark situation or dark time,” Nail says of his mental health struggles. “You just kind of take it for granted how it is. it’s easy to rely on those people when they’re here.”

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His grandfather was so important to Nail that he named his own son after him. “I was sitting there in the front row at [my grandfather’s] funeral and I was just screaming, and there was my son holding my hand,” recalls Nail of Lawson’s son. “It was one of the first conversations I had with my wife as we were walking. I would always tell her that if we ever had children, it would be non-negotiable. We wanted to name our son after my grandfather.”

Now 8 years old, Lawson may not yet understand the importance of his name, but one day he will. Nail guarantees it.

“Something we taught my son very early on is that you have a very special name and you’re named after a very special person,” he says. “And so, you wear that name proudly. Every time I say my son’s name, I can’t help but think about it. It’s just one of those things. I think it just makes that feeling that much more passionate.”

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Indeed, as the father of three put the finishing touches to “If I Could Call,” he knew it would fill him with pride and a little fear every time he sang it.

But they will sing it again.

“I’ve never tried to do something that emotional,” Nail says of the song, whose music video features Nail with his son, Lawson, who is also mentioned in the song. “I wrote a song Fighter a record about my father that was obviously very personal to me, but my father was alive then and is still alive now. But I think it’s different when someone passes away. I have started [‘If I Could Call’] basically with, ‘I’ll try to act like I’m calling just to catch up, but the reality of the situation is that I need this probably more than I’m willing to admit.'”

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Source: HIS Education