If your emotions get the best of you the first time you hear Tim McGraw‘s new song, “I Called Mama,” rest assured, you’re not alone. The same thing happened to the superstar himself the first time he heard it.
“When it got to the hook of the song, I just sort of fell apart,” Tim recalls. “And then I wanted [my wife] Faith [Hill] to hear it, but… it was just a guitar demo, or a guitar work tape.”
“I didn’t want Faith to hear it [like that],” he explains. “I wanted to sing it to her. So I was trying to learn the words to it really quickly, until I could sing her, you know, just the first verse and a chorus.”
But learning “I Called Mama” only seemed to intensify its emotional impact.
“In about thirty minutes, I had it ready,” Tim remembers, “and I said, ‘I want you to hear this song.'”
“So I sat down at the kitchen table, and I started singing it,” he continues. “And I couldn’t get through it… Every time I tried to get to the chorus of it, I would fall apart… And she would start crying because I was crying.”
“But it really hit me…” Tim reflects. “It has a simple message to it, but it just means so much.”
The cover of the “I Called Mama” single features a picture of Tim’s mom shortly before she found out she was pregnant with him. You can also check out the new lyric video for the song, complete with never-before-seen footage of Tim and his mom when he was a baby.
It’s the lead single from Tim’s new album, Here on Earth, which is expected to arrive in the fall.
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