Tim McGraw is taking a stand in opposition to how he truly felt when Taylor Swift named her debut single after him.
It was 2006 when Swift released “Tim McGraw,” which was propelled by the nation singer. The song, which was featured in her self-titled album, became a breakout hit, prompting the now-31-year-old’s ascent to fame.
Almost 15 years after the fact, McGraw, 53, conceded he was “a little apprehensive” about the track when he initially heard it.
“I thought, have I gotten to that age now to where they’re singing songs about me?” McGraw recalled in a recent interview with Apple Music Country for Apple Music Essentials.
“Does that mean I’ve jumped the shark a bit?” the star shared in his conversation with host Alecia Davis. “Is everything still cool? And then I realized that somebody had told me that she was in her seventh-grade math class when she wrote the song, so it made me feel a little bit better about that because she was so young writing it. So I didn’t feel like I was that terribly old.”
In 2007, Swift played out a live version of the song at the 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. It was during the ceremony when Swift met McGraw for the first time.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Swift spouted while welcoming the singer and his wife Faith Hill.
In 2013, McGraw and Swift worked together on an original song named “Highway Don’t Care,” which was released as the third single from his “Two Lanes of Freedom” collection, People magazine detailed. The track likewise featured Keith Urban on guitar.
At that point in 2018, McGraw and Hill, 53, rejoined with Swift in front of an audience during her “Reputation World Tour” to play out her 2006 single hit as a threesome.
McGraw uncovered he became acquainted with Swift better when she opened for himself and Hill on the couple’s “Soul2Soul” tour, which happened somewhere in the range of 2017 and 2018.
“It was incredible,” he said. “It was just her and her guitar and one other person. Just two people, her and another guy playing.”
McGraw demanded he’s currently “a big fan of Taylor’s.”
“I think that she has such a unique way of connecting with her audience and her songwriting ability and her intuition is just so incredible,” he explained.
“And I just think she’s one of the greatest artists to come along in a long time,” he added.