UnCommonwealth: Nationwide jingle was written by Versailles musician

The melody burrows into your brain — or, most recently, into the brain of Super Bowl-winning quarterback Peyton Manning in a series of commercials for Nationwide Insurance.

It’s that jingle, written by Kentuckian J.D. Miller in 1977, to the words “Nationwide is on your side.” Once heard, never forgotten.

Nationwide took advantage of that catchiness to put the melody into daily situations in Manning’s life, be they setting up holiday lights or tasting samples at the superstore. Manning keeps setting words to the Nationwide jingle, which works with just about any six-word combo with a three-syllable first word and four words of single syllables.

All together now: “Nothing beats that new car smell.” “Turkey leg, you taste so good.” “Haven’t been this lost in years.” You know the notes without even thinking.

Miller, 61, has played and written music for most of his life. As a youth, he played for Roger Miller during his days as a chart-topper for King of the Road. He appeared on religious music TV shows. He worked with the Gaithers, Christian music royalty, for 13 years, and has written songs for, and with, such singers as Bette Midler and Kenny Rogers.

But most Americans will know Miller because the man has a gift: He can write a musical hook that burns the identity of a company into consumer brain cells.

The trick to it, Miller said, is to write the melody as people would speak it. Mimicking the patterns of natural speech enabled him to write jingles that you may remember better than you do the names of family and friends.

In his prime jingle-writing days, Miller was a partner in a Lexington studio near Southland Drive. These days, he concentrates on Christian music and does cultural exchange concerts to China.

Miller is active in music at Berea Christian Church in Lexington. He grew up in independent Christian churches, where his father was a minister.

He got his start as a jingle writer by accident, he said, when a client of his studio needed a quick turnaround on a jingle: “I just stumbled into this,” he said.

Usually, he was handed a set of words and asked to provide a melody. For the KFC campaign, Miller said he provided both music and words.

KFC needed to assert its supremacy in producing fried chicken known around the world, Miller said, in about five seconds. Hence: “KFC: We do chicken right,” with the emphasis on the final word.

He also produced the Fayette Mall jingle. If you grew up in Lexington, you must remember this: “Fayette Mall, it’s the place to be/There’s so much to do/There’s so much to see.”

For Bank of the Bluegrass, he produced a jingle starring the voice of his then 3 year-old daughter: “Bank of the Bluegrass/We got it all together for you.”

For his first ever jingle, Miller got a cash payment of $600. Although he received a modest initial payment for the Nationwide jingle — at the time, his fourth effort in jingle-writing — he doesn’t get royalties for every time Manning sings something like “Crawfish shorts I like your style” in a Nationwide commercial.

“I’m glad it worked for them,” Miller said of the Nationwide jingle. “It hasn’t hurt me that they were successful.”

The Nationwide commercial jingle had variations, Miller said: They include a Christmas version with a tinkling background, a jazz version and a country version.

In his home studio in Woodford County, Miller produces a photo of himself standing next to Nationwide’s headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. It’s Nationwide. It’s on his side. Get it?

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 2:53 PM with the headline "UnCommonwealth: Nationwide jingle was written by Versailles musician."