Songoftheday 12/3/24 -He said "I was in my early forties with a lot of life before me when a moment came that stopped me on a dime"...
"Live Like You Were Dying" - Tim McGraw
from the album Live Like You Were Dying (2004)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song comes from country music artist Tim McGraw, who took control of his career and recorded an album with his tour band, eschewing the studio vets usually forced on him. That set, Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors, spun off four singles that went top ten on Billboard magazine's Country Songs airplay chart and crossed over to the top 40 on the Hot 100 with "Red Rag Top", "She's My Kind Of Rain", "Real Good Man", and "Watch The Wind Blow By". Though they didn't get a label bill on his next studio release, Live Like You Were Dying, Tim brought back the Dancehall Doctors for the record as well. The title track, written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, was released as the lead single. The lyrics have Tim having a conversation with a man who had gotten news that his health was failing, with McGraw asking how did he take the stress. The answer came that the man appreciated life more and strove to make every second count. Sure there's corny lines like "I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu", but amidst the supposed feats there's an awakening of feeling towards the people around him. The line about how he "gave forgiveness I'd been denying" cuts to my core. Yes, it's Hallmark movie ready, but Tim can sell that kind of moralty play with just the slightest cracks in his vocals, and the production from Byron Gallimore and Darren Smith is lush and lets the band show how in sync they are with their regular leader. The music video has Tim barefoot in a pure white set like he's already in heaven...
"Live Like You Were Dying" became Tim's longest running #1 hit on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, spending seven weeks at the summit, while reaching the top-40 on the Hot 100 in August of 2004. The song even made its way to mainstream radio, peaking at #37 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart (his only solo song to make it there), #21 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list, and was his biggest success at the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format, rising to #4 and spending over a year (54 weeks) on the chart. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian country chart and even popped on to the British Singles chart for a week at #94. The Live Like You Were Dying album, released in August as the hit was cresting, topped the Billboard 200 sales tally for two weeks, and spent three weeks at #1 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over four million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, Tim won for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, as well as the writers Wiseman and Nichols did for Best Country Song. He was also nominated for Best Country Album, which veteran Loretta Lynn took home for her "comeback" album Van Lear Rose.
Both Tim and the Live Like You Were Dying album will be back to the series.
(10/10)
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McGraw also sang at the Live 8 mega charity concert in 2005 (can I again say how great his band is?)....
Here we have Tim for his CMT Invitation Only episode in 2009...
And lastly, McGraw for his Soundstage stint a year later...
Up tomorrow: This R&B Grammy magnet keeps a journal.
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