. >> when we met gerald mccullough at the river bend national security institution near nashville, tennesseelfway through a 12-year sentence on a sexual offense charge. >> there's no way out. there's just nothing to do. this is just a total waste of someone's life. >> despite his pessimism, mccullough had found a productive outlet to express his pain. ♪ they say it's raining in denver ♪ ♪ that it's really kind of cold but i'm just pulling time in nashville ♪ ♪ how am i supposed to know ♪ >> in a prison in nashville the home of country music, we decided it would be great if we could find a country singer, and so we kind of made a callout to the other inmates and officers and they came up with mcculloch and he turned out to be pretty good. ♪ said she never talked about me ♪ ♪ how it never did seem right ♪ ♪ i've been pulling time in nashville ♪ ♪ wasting days and wasting nights ♪ >> writing music in prison is just my life. i don't sit down to write a song. something hits me and my best songs come with about two minutes and about two or three minutes i have an excellent song. and i wrote "pulli