Jelly Roll just celebrated his sixth No. 1 single with “I Am Not Okay,” the debut single from his Beautifully Broken album, released in October. The song, written by Jelly Roll, along with Taylor Phillips, Ashley Gorley and Casey Brown, is an anthem of positivity and encouragement, even in the face of challenges and adversity.

“I had the idea for ‘I am not okay, but it’s all gonna be all right,’ and we tried to write that song probably four different times,” Jelly Roll tells Variety. “I just could not land the plane on it. It either became almost too painful or, the other side of it was, it became too cheeky. It is trying to find that balance where the words come together in a way that make you feel something without cringing. And there’s a thin line then between being able to really touch the human heart and just being a little cringe.”

The 40-year-old has created a name for himself with well-crafted lyrics in his songs. But with lines like, “I am not okay /  I’m barely getting by / I’m losing track of days / And losing sleep at night,” the song is just one of 14 on the record that Jelly Roll focused heavily on the message.

“The lyrics are probably what I’m the most proud of on this album,” he says. “I fight for lyrics in writers’ rooms. It is something I stand on. I’m huge on what the storytelling actually is … Having this album at least be noticed for that part of it makes me feel like I didn’t waste 18 months being a stickler over some of these songs in vain.”

Originally, the Nashville native planned on releasing “Liar,” his current single, first. But it was the fan reaction to “I Am Not Okay” that gave Jelly Roll the encouragement he needed to start with “I Am Not Okay” instead.

“I’ve never told this story. People were skeptical, including myself a little bit,” Jelly Roll reveals. “We knew it was probably the biggest song we had. And I always felt like it was a song I wanted to show people when they get in the car, when I had my phone out, in demo mode. But man, you start getting them little voices that don’t matter in your ear. They’re like, ‘What about tempo? Shouldn’t we have a tempo single?’ All that kind of jazz. And I had already sung ‘Liar’ at the ACMs, and we were getting ready to go on The Voice, when it looked like ‘Liar’ was gonna be the single — which it is now (as the follow-up).

“And right before we went on, I called and I was like, ‘Can we not do ‘I Am Not Okay’ on The Voice?'” he recalls. “And they were like, ‘Yeah, why not?’ And the cool story about this is, ‘I Am Not Okay’ picked itself as a single. I woke up that next morning after The Voice, and I think 12,000 people had used the sound on TikTok. At that moment, I called my manager and was like, ‘Man, I tell you what, the people have spoken, this is our first.'”

Find “I Am Not Okay,” all of Jelly Roll’s music and upcoming shows at JellyRoll615.com.