“Thought About You”
Tim McGraw
Written by Lee Thomas Miller, Brad Warren, and Brett Warren
Tim McGraw has so many inspirational songs under his belt that it places a burden on his newer attempts to wrestle with family, faith and mortality.
“Thought About You” goes in a handful of interesting directions, mostly when specific details surface like, “I saw ‘hungry’ misspelled on a cardboard sign.” But the song has no clear purpose, and never establishes why all of these seemingly random encounters and observations make him think about the person he is singing to.
Dead father? Ex-wife? New grandchild? Who knows? And does it really matter who he’s singing to in the end, when he doesn’t have much to say to them in the first place?
Grade: C
C seems fair. It’s not a song I’d buy as a single.
It will be interesting to see how this one fares on the charts. This time kind of reminds me of 1990 when some veterans (Conway Twitty, Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, the Bellamy Brothers, etc.) were squeezing out a few final hits. McGraw hasn’t had a top ten hit in a few years, Chesney’s last single didn’t crack the Top 20, Brad Paisley is no longer a force on the charts and Blake Shelton’s run of #1’s has ended as have the strings of Top 10 singles for Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban. It’s a cycle, but it looks like the most veteran artists with consistent chart fortunes these days are Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Jake Owen.
While this is not his best ever song (or even in the top 5), its very powerful. How many of us have lost people in our lives (through death, the end of a relationship whatever) and still have so many things that remind of us of that person? This song reminds me a little of Live Like you Were Dyin, or My Old Friend.
I’ll give it a B
…so many strings, so few knots. well sung, but overall just not well enough written.
This song is a rewrite of the song “Love Runs” from McGraw’s earlier album “Damn Country Music”. Almost note for note the same melody.