For decades, fans believed they knew the heart and soul behind Jessi Colter’s most legendary ballad — the raw, haunting classic that made her a household name and a pillar of outlaw country music. It was romantic. It was powerful. And, until now, it was widely accepted to be a love letter to her late husband, Waylon Jennings.

But in a shocking twist revealed in a soon-to-be-released documentary, the song wasn’t written for Waylon at all.

Instead, it was inspired by another man — a figure long buried in Jessi’s past, unknown to the public, but unforgettable to her.

The Song That Defined a Legacy

In 1975, Jessi Colter released I’m Not Lisa, a soulful ballad that climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and crossed over to the pop charts — a rare feat for a female country artist at the time. The song’s aching refrain, “I’m not Lisa / My name is Julie,” resonated with millions. It was haunting. Lonely. Timeless.

Naturally, fans — and even music critics — assumed the song was autobiographical. Jessi was married to outlaw legend Waylon Jennings. Their tempestuous love story was well-known: the passion, the addiction, the music, the redemption. The lyrics seemed to echo the struggle of being compared to another — of trying to find identity in the shadow of a past love.

For years, Jessi let the interpretation stand.

But now, in a voiceover recorded for Colter: The Woman Behind the Song, an upcoming documentary produced by her granddaughter, she finally speaks the truth.

“It Wasn’t for Waylon. It Was Before.”

In the recording, Jessi’s voice is soft but unwavering.

“I never corrected anyone,” she says. “People thought it was about Waylon. About being compared to his past, his demons. But I’m Not Lisa came before all that. Before Waylon. It was written for someone else — someone I loved when I was very young. And someone I lost.”

According to the documentary, Jessi wrote the early version of I’m Not Lisa in the late 1960s, before she met Waylon Jennings, during a period of artistic experimentation and deep personal heartbreak.

“It was about a man I fell in love with when I was just starting out,” she says. “He couldn’t let go of someone else — a woman he had loved before me. And I always felt like I was living in her ghost.”

A Love That Couldn’t Be

So who was this man?

The documentary doesn’t name him directly. But it hints: he was a fellow musician. Older. Married. Their relationship, brief but intense, left Jessi emotionally devastated. Her journals — shared by the family for the first time — describe a “deep, aching jealousy of a woman I never met.”

In one entry dated 1968, Jessi wrote:

“He touches my hand but never my heart. His mind still lives with her. I’m not her. I never will be.”

The refrain “I’m not Lisa” appears several times in those pages, suggesting that the emotional seeds of the song were planted well before its formal release.

Why the Secret?

Why didn’t Jessi ever reveal the truth? Why let the world believe the song was for Waylon?

Her granddaughter, Sarah Jennings, says it was about protection — of both her legacy and her family.

“Jessi loved Waylon deeply,” Sarah explains in the film. “He saved her, and she saved him. She didn’t want to confuse that narrative. And maybe… she didn’t want to reopen old wounds.”

Still, Sarah says Jessi gave her blessing to reveal the truth after her passing.

“She told me, ‘If people love the song, they deserve to know the soul behind it.’”

Fans React

The revelation has sent shockwaves through the country music world.

“I’m stunned,” one longtime fan wrote on Reddit. “That song has always felt so personal to Waylon and Jessi’s story. Now I hear it completely differently.”

Music historians are already reassessing Jessi’s catalog, searching for other songs that might carry hidden meanings or point to forgotten chapters in her life.

“She was always more than Waylon’s wife,” said Nashville critic Lena Ford. “She was an artist with her own voice, her own pain, her own secrets. This just proves it.”

A Different Kind of Legacy

The film doesn’t portray the revelation as scandalous — but as liberating.

“Jessi wasn’t hiding anything out of shame,” Sarah insists. “She just chose to let the art speak louder than the gossip.”

And in many ways, I’m Not Lisa becomes even more powerful through this lens — not as a wife’s lament to her husband, but as a young woman’s cry for identity in the shadow of someone else’s memory.

“She wasn’t Lisa,” Sarah says at the end of the documentary. “She was Jessi. And she finally gets to be heard for who she truly was.”

The Final Word

In the documentary’s closing scene, a previously unreleased home recording plays. Jessi sings an early version of I’m Not Lisa, raw and unpolished, accompanied only by a piano.

Her voice cracks slightly as she sings the final line:

“Please don’t say you love me / Just because you loved her once.”

And then, silence.

That silence now speaks louder than ever.