Interview: Tim McGraw

As Tim McGraw comes around with his Pawn Shop Guitar tour, understand that major health issues briefly had him contemplate retiring from music. But thanks to crack medical treatment and a burning desire to continue making music, McGraw is not only back out on the road, but trotting out two new songs, “Pawn Shop Guitar” and “Song for America.” 

 Rigorous physical therapy allowed McGraw to recover and keep the creative flame burning.

“The health is good and I feel like I’m almost back to 100 percent,” McGraw said with a laugh in an early July interview. “I went to my doctor and told him I felt like I was close to 80 percent and he said, ‘Welcome to your new 100.’ I reckon I’m at 100 percent. At 59 years old, that’s all I can hope for after four back surgeries and double-knee replacement. I wrote a lot during my rehab time and time I was down for my surgeries. I wrote more than I ever have for every other album. But I’m getting around great and having zero problems. I’m very excited about the tour. We’re ready to go back out and do what we do.”

Riding off this burst of inspiration, McGraw has been working on his forthcoming 17th studio album, of which “Pawn Shop Guitar” is the title track and “Song for America” is another new cut. While McGraw co-wrote the autobiographical “Pawn Shop Guitar” with Tom Douglas, he also embraced the patriotic celebration of what it means to be American that was written by JT Harding and Douglas. For the Louisiana native, making sure he got the right song on this upcoming release mattered more than who the composer was. 

“My mantra is the song has to win, no matter who wrote it,” McGraw explained. “A lot of times my songs get beat out by somebody who has something to say that’s a lot better than what I was trying to write. I will say this is the first album I’m going to have where there are four or five songs I wrote. This’ll be the first time for me to have that many and I’m excited about that.”

McGraw has such a deep, hit-filled catalog that crafting a set list has become a very real, but welcome challenge.

“After doing this for 35 years, playing music and having a lot of success, knock on wood, I have so many songs to choose from that we’re never going to get everybody the songs they want to hear,” he said. “’Live Like You’re Dying’ is probably one you can never get away without doing. And ‘Humbling Times’ is probably one of those songs, too. Then the rest of them, you throw in a bag and start putting together a puzzle and trying to create a movie for people to follow from start to finish. If they don’t hear the favorite song they came to hear, hopefully they’ll still be entertained and still enjoy the other songs.”

For McGraw, music has been a constant in his life dating back to early memories of riding in the family station wagon with his mom listening to her sing all the words to any songs that came on the radio ranging from country music hits of the day to every Beach Boys, Jan and Dean or surf music song that came on the radio. Equally informative for McGraw was riding shotgun with his truck-driving stepfather when he was a young kid.

“My stepdad drove an 18-wheeler, so when I was four, five and six-years-old, I would ride with him across Louisiana and Texas and listen to eight tracks of country music all the time,” McGraw said. “I knew every word to every Merle Haggard and Charlie Pride song. That was cutting my teeth on country music pretty early riding in an 18-wheeler hauling cottonseed.”

Other formative moments included having his waitress mom keep his playpen next to the jukebox of the truck stop/diner where she worked and gifting him an Elvis Presley record early on, an important development as the “King” quickly became an obsession for the young McGraw.

From the time I was old enough to know what music was, I was a huge Elvis fan,” McGraw recalled. “What I tell people is to put some good headphones on and crank up ‘Love Me Tender’ and listen to the vocal on it. That was probably done in one pass at Sun Studios back in the day and I defy you to find a better sounding vocal anywhere on any record these days.”

With this kind of visceral love of music continuing unabated, it’s no surprise that McGraw’s career is not only approaching its fourth decade but led to his being included as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026. When asked about his longevity, he’s quick to point to craft and the excellence of those around him.

“Songs are the lifeblood of what we do,” McGraw said. “You can be the best singer in the world, but if you don’t have a great song, you’re not going to be speaking to the world. I think I’ve been fortunate enough to find great songs and have great songwriters be friends of mine that send me songs when they write them. It really gave me a great insight into learning the craft myself and having an insight for picking good songs.”