Daily Wire podcast host Isabel Brown released a special tribute episode in honor of Charlie Kirk’s birthday on October 14, which included interviews with some of the best voices in country music, including recording artist Cole Swindell.
The 42-year-old Grammy Award nominee says he’s never been the same since learning about the tragic loss of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The “She Had Me at Heads Carolina” singer opened up to Brown about how the news inspired a soul-searching look at his own life and ultimately led him to write the emotional song, “Make Heaven Crowded.”
“I was getting ready to go on the road,” Swindell said, recalling the moment he found out Kirk had been assassinated. “Me and [my wife] Courtney and our brand new baby girl, we were just laying around and talking and we had the news on and all of a sudden she got a text from a friend that told us the news. We’re like, no way, no way. And so we flipped on the news and we&#8217;re following it and it&#8217;s just the feelings … I don&#8217;t know that you can actually put what you were feeling into words other than just couldn&#8217;t believe it. It was just a shock and sad, scared, mad, just a lot of it.”
“We just celebrated our first wedding anniversary as a husband. Just had our first kid as a father. I think it hit everybody a little different,” Swindell added.
For many, Charlie Kirk’s death marked a cultural moment &#8212; but Swindell said for him, it served as a spiritual reckoning.
“I hate that something like this had to happen,” he told Brown. “I feel like bad things happen and it brings us all together and then we slowly drift back apart, and this is just something that I think a lot of us drew the line. This is it. I mean, a guy just got assassinated for believing how I believe, except for he was a little more bold about it. And I think that’s what got me.”
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Swindell described feeling convicted about how he was living his own life, including how much he talked about his beliefs.
“It made me look in the mirror. Somebody that&#8217;s living like I should be living and spreading the word as a Christian, what I should be doing with the platform that I have,” he said. “I just think a lot of us are fed up with feeling like we can&#8217;t say how we believe. I mean, there’s no harm in that. And like I said, I&#8217;m a loving person, I&#8217;m not judgmental. I kind of stay out of the way and do my own thing and try to be good to people, and that&#8217;s just not good enough anymore. I have to influence other people to be good to people.”
Swindell said he never met Charlie Kirk personally, but said he’s been learning more about him every day.
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“Even this song … I happened to run across a clip of Erika [Kirk] the first time she spoke after, and that really is what hit me the hardest. I’d heard ‘make heaven crowded,’ I’d seen the phrase, but it never hit me like when I watched her say that. ‘Charlie, you alongside Jesus, doing what you always wanted to do, ‘make heaven crowded.’”
For Swindell, those words turned into a tribute. “You keep seeing the word &#8216;revival,'&#8221; he said. “And I believe it. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. If there’s ever a chance for us to stand up and to keep this going, we cannot lose this feeling right now. It just feels like everybody knows that we’ve gotta do something. And Charlie is a huge part of that.”
Swindell reflected on Kirk’s well-known passion for strong families, something that has taken on new meaning for him since becoming a husband and father. “I have chills, because that is something I see him talk about: get married, have kids,” he said. “And I don&#8217;t know that until you do that, you really understand. Now I understand why he was saying that. Even just the getting married part for me, that took me a little longer. But once I&#8217;ve done it, it&#8217;s like, man, I wish I would have found this sooner.”
He went on, “Then you have kids, and we just had our first little daughter two months ago, and just, my gosh. I mean, now you wanna go tell people you have to do that. There&#8217;s nothing else like it. No matter what you do for a living, what you&#8217;ve accomplished, it does not, I mean, looking into her eyes, knowing that nothing else matters. Why would you not want to share that with people? Why would you not want people to feel that?”
That conviction became the heart of his new song, a spontaneous release that wasn’t planned, but felt led by God.
“I just put out an album in June,” Swindell went on. “I had no plans of putting music out, but obviously nobody had any plans of this happening. Just to write a song that was something that was on my heart.”
He continued, “I’ve literally been praying and praying about just personally, do I still need to do this? Can I, should I hang it up, be a dad? And like I said, the song, the reaction, I think it was the Lord telling me, look, your career is not over, you&#8217;re just not going any further without me. My wife told me that, and I believe it.”
Swindell described how the song’s impact has gone far beyond what he expected. “To play it live and to see the reaction now, to see the American flags, the freedom shirts start showing up in the crowd, it’s just, it’s real. And man, like I said, this song is, if it helps one person, if it changes one person’s heart, then it’s done its job, I feel like.”
For Swindell, the song isn’t about career milestones or chart performance. It’s a mission statement. “This literally is to honor Charlie and to spread Jesus everywhere we can,” he said. “That’s why I do believe I have a platform, and just people that do … just use it for good.”
He hopes others will take that challenge seriously.
“Anytime I’ve ever taken a chance and written something I was scared to maybe put out there, you find out there’s so many other people that feel just like you. And until you take that step and put that out there, you may never know,” he said. “There’s so many people out there hurting that need it, and they may look up to you. And the fact that, you know, if you can ever let them know, like, hey, I’ve been through stuff, too. That’s all we’re trying to do. We’re trying to connect through music.”
“I think that’s what I’m called to do from here on out,” Swindell added.
Brown&#8217;s tribute episode on what would have been Kirk&#8217;s 32nd birthday, titled &#8220;A Life Worth Singing For,&#8221; also included insight and reflection from country star John Rich, Matthew West, Abe Parker, and Anne Wilson.

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Singer Cole Swindell Tells Isabel Brown How Charlie Kirk’s Death Changed His Life