Story Behind the Song: Kiefer Sutherland, ‘Truth in Your Eyes’

Kiefer Sutherland co-wrote all of the songs on his forthcoming first country album, Down in a Hole, baring his soul on each and every one of the record's 11 tracks. But one song in particular, "Truth in Your Eyes" -- which Sutherland wrote with producer and good friend Jude Cole -- is especially personal. Below, Sutherland shares the tragic and heartbreaking story behind the song.

The hardest song for me to play, just because it’s a really painful memory, is "Truth in Your Eyes," but it means a lot to me. I’ve only introduced it twice. I introduced it once, and I don’t know why; I think someone was having a guitar problem, and I had to say something, so I introduced the song.

I lost somebody, a woman that I loved very much, and they died way too young ... What Jude did to it musically, which was really, really clever, was, he gave it a real upbeat thing, so you might not get what the song was about.

I introduced it one night, and I explained that I lost this person, and somehow, when I play the song, it makes me smile, because I think of them, with all of their life and everything. About three weeks later, a woman who was at that show came to see another show, and she told me that she had lost her husband and that she’d been dealing with that for 20-some odd years, and somehow, that song made her feel better. And so I introduced the song again that night, and I got three-quarters of the way through the introduction, and I lost it. I said, "That’s all I got to say about that," and we played the song.

The audience was so incredibly gracious, because I literally did lose it: I started crying, and the audience just stood up and clapped, and then we played the song, and you could have heard a pin drop. It’s those kind of experiences that we’ve been having out on the road that just changed my life.

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