There are two versions of the song. The album version contains the lyrics: "So be careful of those killing in Jesus' name/He don't believe in killing at all." The single version that was released to radio replaces those lines with: "And I wish you all a long sightline/And the strength to walk tall." Mellencamp said the record company asked him to provide less controversial lyrics for the version sent out to radio stations to give the song a better chance of getting airplay. "Walk Tall" was produced by Babyface, who also plays guitar and provides backing vocals on the song.

In 2004, Mellencamp spoke to CMT about his inspiration for writing the song: "'Walk Tall' really was written ... you know, I heard Woody Guthrie say in some kind of documentary that it was important for him to write songs about people and try to make them feel good about themselves. He said, 'I ain't gonna write no more songs that would make anybody feel bad about themselves.' And I always kind of took that with me as a songwriter. I didn't always do that, but in today's world where there seems to be so much ... I don't know ... fear and hatred toward each other, it seemed like, 'If you can write an inspirational song, John, you should probably try to do it,' you know? So that's where that came from. That's how that song was written."

As for Babyface's involvement, Mellencamp told American Songwriter magazine in 2004 the story of how he brought the song to Babyface: "If you take a song like 'Walk Tall,' when I play it acoustically, it’s a folk song in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. But I knew right away that I wanted to have an R&B feel for that song. I played it for Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, who’s a real R&B guy. I said, 'Listen to this song, and see what kind of R&B feel you can put to it.' I think I played one verse and one chorus and he had already come up with the feel. And that happened within, no exaggeration, thirty seconds of him hearing the song. He hadn’t even heard me play the song once, and he was already playing that rhythm against my folk rhythm. So I looked at him at that point and said, 'I’ll see you in Indiana in a few weeks.'”

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