Songoftheday 4/12/23 - I don't know why I act the way I do, like I ain't got a single thing to lose...
"The Cowboy In Me" - Tim McGraw
from the album Set This Circus Down (2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song comes from country music singer Tim McGraw, whose sixth studio album Set This Circus Down had already spun off a pair of #1 country radio hits that also made the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Grown Men Don't Cry" and "Angry All The Time". He also appeared on Jo Dee Messina's #1 country hit "Bring On The Rain" (which he co-produced) which also made the Hot 100 top-40.
The third single from his album would be the proto branding track "The Cowboy In Me". Written by Al Anderson, Jeffrey Steele, and Craig Wiseman, The lyrics are the generic positioning the "cowboy" persona as a "rebel" (read into that what you will), but Tim at least tones down the message, and has some vulnerability in the way his delivers lines like "The me that's never satisfied, The face that's in the mirror when I don't like what I see". The simple production from Byron Gallimore, James Stroud, and McGraw is world-weary and definitely gets the nuance through better, making this possibly the best of that eras many, many songs of that type. The music video, though, swaps the intimacy to have him amidst a throng of screaming women in concert...
"The Cowboy In Me" became the third #1 Country Airplay hit from the album, as well as the third to make the top-40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 2002. In fact, McGraw replaced him on the Country chart coming right after "Bring On The Rain".
Both Tim and the album will be back to the series.
(7/10)
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and lastly, Tim recorded a separate version for the popular television series Yellowstone in 2021...
Up tomorrow: Two rappers introduce us to Peachtree Street.
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