Jelly Roll is no stranger to laying his trials out for the rest of the world to see and learn from, and his favorite song off his October 2024 album, Beautifully Broken, is certainly a testament to that fact. The country rap artist frequently uses his music to express and navigate his experiences with incarceration, addiction, and mental illness. Uncomfortable honesty has always been his M.O.

Thus, it’s unsurprising that one of Jelly Roll’s favorite songs is also one he described as “the ultimate cry for help.”

Jelly Roll’s Favorite Song Off ‘Beautifully Broken’

In an October 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Jelly Roll described his tenth studio album, Beautifully Broken, as an “exploration of mental health. This was my exploration of addiction, and this was my exploration of detox. These were the feelings that seemed to surround what we were writing. I took a lot of pride in the top line of this album, every lyric I fought for. It took me 18 months to write this album. I got a lot of music, man. I wrote a lot of songs.”

Indeed, from “Winning Streak” to “I Am Not Okay,” the country-rap artist reflects on the soaring highs he’s recently experienced in comparison to the tumultuous lows he faced years prior. Jelly Roll wears his life on his face (literally, via multiple face tattoos). And he wears his heart on his sleeve, as exemplified in the third track of Beautifully Broken, “Heart of Stone.” During a visit to the On Purpose podcast with Jay Shetty, Jelly Roll revealed that this track was his favorite. “I think these lyrics say the most in this whole album,” Jelly Roll said, adding that he would consider “Heart of Stone” to be the song that best summarizes “who [I] stand for and what [I] stand by.”

“I love songs when you can read a song, and it’s impactful,” he continued. “As a songwriter, that’s it. Most of the time, our message is in the melody. If you don’t have the melody there, it’ll kind of be like, ‘Ah, that didn’t sound as cool as I thought it did when I just read it flat.’ But when I read “Heart of Stone,” I get goosebumps reading that, and I wrote it.”

He Called The Song “The Ultimate Cry For Help”

Jelly Roll’s “Heart of Stone” introduces the narrator at their lowest point: Dear Lord, can you help me? I’ve fallen out of graves. I’m crawlin’ back to Heaven from this hell on earth I made. My blood has gotten heavy, there’s metal in my veins. It’s runnin’ like the river filled with all of my mistakes.

Then, by the end of the song, the narrative has turned around. The song offers an empowering message to those struggling with addiction that there is a way to recover. At least for now, Lord, I ain’t losin’ hope that somehow you can make a heart of gold from this heart of stone.

“To me, that was the ultimate cry for help, you know what I mean?” Jelly Roll told podcast host Jay Shetty. “My whole music is about honesty. I love the idea of being like, ‘God, I know I need you, you know what I mean. But you got to come over here. I’m in a really dark place.”

Jelly Roll’s Beautifully Broken also came on the heels of two other successful releases, Whitsitt Chapel and Ballads of the Broken. It certainly doesn’t appear like the artist is slowing down anytime soon—musically or personally. The musician keeps this ongoing journey close to the chest while on the road.

“I got a chain made for this tour,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s a set of handcuffs for every time I was arrested that lead to a key to the jail that I was locked up in that the sheriff gave me personally. This is my redemption chain.”