Tim McGraw was part of a songwriter’s round-robin a couple of years ago, where he spent some time with David Crosby, who passed away last week at age 81. In the chat, Tim revealed the subject of his first song.
Tim told The Hollywood Reporter, “I grew up in a little town, Start, Louisiana, just cotton farming and bean farming, been driving a tractor my whole life. I don’t remember exactly how old I was. But it was when Princess Diana and Charles got married. I just fell in love with her like everybody else did. So I sat down and wrote a song about their wedding and how beautiful she was. I don’t remember how it goes; I just remember something about ‘You look so much like a queen’ or something like that. It was terrible.”
McGraw also shared in the same interview that music saved him. He said, “It saved me because I was getting an eviction notice from my apartment, and I got my first royalty check pretty much within the same week. But in a broader sense, everything good that has happened to me in my life has come from music. I met my wife [Faith Hill] through it, which was the first turning point in my life into a real understanding of what love is and finding out who you are in a lot of ways, and discovering the bad sides of yourself and the good sides of yourself.”
He added, “And music is such therapy. Especially if you grew up in a dysfunctional environment, to have that as a tool that you can go to is something that I’m always grateful for. Or I try to be grateful, I’m not always — because it can go away. You can wake up one morning, and, like you said, your magic is gone.”