Tim McGraw has confessed that his mother had a “complete meltdown” after hearing his new Here On Earth album’s emotional song ‘I Called Mama’ for the first time.
Tim revealed exclusively to Smooth Country during a new interview that the song dedication had his mother in tears – and that her portrait now serves as the artwork for the music.
Tim, 53, also disclosed the advices his mother, Betty Trimble, has given him over the years.
“My mom has given me a lot of advice, whether I wanted it or not,” Tim told Smooth Country. “She’s given me a lot of guidance and continues to do so.”
“However, my mother has always been quite close to me. For the first time, I sent it to her. She is a work of art. The cover of the single features a photo of my mother in high school, just before she found out about me.”
“But then I sent her the song, and all I got back were crying emojis. So I knew I shouldn’t call her because I knew she’d have a complete meltdown when she heard the song.”
“And that song evolved in a different way for us because when we first recorded it, it was definitely about something hitting you hard in life and going to who your backbone is and who your stabilising forces are in your life. And for most individuals, that’s their mother. It most emphatically is for me.”
“But then as the world changed and we were mixing the song and finishing up the song, it really became about a much bigger thing,” he said to Smooth Country’s Rory O’Connor.
“It came down to, who are the people in your life you can lean on in times like this?” When things look out of control and the world appears to be whirling out of control. Who are the folks on whom you can rely?
“More importantly, I believe it made you consider who the people are who look to you as the rock they can lean on when times are tough – and can you be there for them?”
Tim admitted that it became more difficult to release an album in 2020 but added, “Fortunately, we’d gotten most of it done. We’d just finished recording two or three songs when the lockdown began; immediately before it began, we recorded the last portions of the songs.”
