Tim McGraw’s new song is a tribute to mothers everywhere.
And it’s here just in time for Mother’s Day.
McGraw spoke to CNN about the single, “I Called Mama,” and how playing it for his wife, Faith Hill, helped him decide to record it.
“When I tried to sing it, every time I got to the chorus when it got to the ‘I Called Mama’ line, I fell apart and I couldn’t sing the song because I would just start crying,” McGraw said about performing it for Hill. “That’s when I knew I needed to cut it and see how it was going to turn out.”
The single, released on Friday, was written by McGraw’s friends Lance Miller, Marv Green and Jimmy Yeary. The track is McGraw’s first since returning to Big Machine Records earlier this year.
For McGraw, he couldn’t help but think about his own mom and the phone call that changed the course of his life.
“I probably would have never moved to Nashville [if it wasn’t for my mom],” McGraw said. “I called my mom and told her I was going to quit college and move to Nashville. It was a tough call because I was scared to death, because I knew how bad she wanted me to go to college and how much she wanted me to make a success of my life… and she said, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t already.’ When she told me that, it was a vote of confidence to sell everything I had and get on a greyhound bus and go to Nashville. You don’t want to let your mom down.”
