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GREENSBORO — The 21/2-minute song that Dave Wulfeck wrote with a friend six years ago is getting a lot of play.

“Everybody Wins” was played at the Special Olympics 2005 World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. The song is now the title track to the CD for the 2010 USA Special Olympics National Games, which will be played in Nebraska July 18-23.

It is also featured on the games’ Web site. “It’s a song of hope,” said Wulfeck, who lives in Reidsville.

Wulfeck wrote the song with Dee Meese, a resident of upstate New York whom he met at a 2003 songwriting workshop in Nashville.

Wulfeck performs the vocals on the song. Meese’s son, Jo Dee, who has Down syndrome, was the inspiration. Jo Dee opens the song by reciting the Special Olympics athlete oath.

Wulfeck has been writing songs for about 12 years but has been a musician most of his life. He plays second trombone in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, is a member of the Carolina Brass and an adjunct faculty member in the music department at Shaw University in Raleigh.

Wulfeck said he and Meese were among a group of people sitting in a circle singing songs during the workshop when Meese played a song — “The Jesus in Jo” — that he’d written to explain his son’s sunny disposition.

The two men started hanging out and talked about teaming up to write not just any song, but one for the Special Olympics, Wulfeck said.

They began writing “Everybody Wins” in 2003, and with the help of Meese’s cousin, they recorded it the following year.

“Dee and I, we would call each other maybe every three or four weeks and talk for an hour or two and maybe get one or two new lines,” Wulfeck said.

Sarah Leeth, vice president of marketing and public relations for the 2010 games, said the Nebraska chapter of the Nashville Songwriters Association International brought the song to the attention of Special Olympics officials.

Leeth said it was particularly moving that the song featured the Special Olympics oath: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

“They approached us and we just knew it was a great fit,” Leeth said.

She said Special Olympics is hoping to use the song in an upcoming public service announcement.

Wulfeck and Meese will perform the song at the national games.
 

Contact Jonnelle Davis at 373-7080 or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com