“I Like it, I Love it“
Tim McGraw
Written by Jeb Stuart Anderson, Steve Dukes, and Mark Hall
Billboard
#1 (5 weeks)
September 16 – October 14, 1995
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
September 8 – September 15, 1995
Tim McGraw as we know him has arrived.
The Road to No. 1
After going No. 1 with “Not a Moment Too Soon,” McGraw went top five with “Refried Dreams.” He then previewed his third studio album, All I Want, with his biggest hit yet.
The No. 1
“I Like it, I Love it” is a significant improvement on everything Tim McGraw released before it.
Now a multiplatinum star, McGraw had the clout to demand top drawer material from Nashville’s songwriting community, and he used it. I still remember when All I Want was released, and reviewers were all like, “It’s….good. It’s actually really good.”
“I Like it, I Love it” is recorded with newfound confidence, and he gives a charming and endearing performance, even breaking into a Big Bopper “…you know what I like” ad-lib at the end.
His “I can’t believe I got this lucky” disbelief in the bridge couldn’t have been sung as convincingly by anyone else:
Gotta wash my truck and dress up…to pick her up to watch TV
Then she’ll sit down on the sofa, move a little closer, she can’t get enough of me!
Such a joyful record, with a contagious energy that still makes me smile today.
The Road From No. 1
He follows this smash with a killer ballad that we’ll cover before the end of 1995.
“I Like it, I Love it” gets a B+.
Every No. 1 Single of the Nineties
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I always considered ” I like it, I love it, I want some more off it” as some of the most banal lyrics of the decade. This is perhaps the song that finally turned me completely off of McGraw. The verses have enough colour and details to make the song potentially interesting until the insipid chorus derails the listening experience for me. I wish I could share in Kevin’s joy. This performance triggers all the wrong nostalgic emotions for me.
Hey, don’t forget to turn off this song!
I’ll write my official review of this song much later on, but I agree with everything you said about this single. The only thing I disagree with you about is that McGraw would definitely get me back on numerous occasions down the road.
I can definitely see where Peter is coming from here, but I have to agree with Kevin that it’s still a pretty fun song for me today. As he points out, there’s a new level of energy he brought this time out, and there’s a certain charm here that was missing from some of his previous upbeat numbers. He really does come across as a likeable regular Joe who’s completely elated by his new romance. Even the crowd noises in the background add to the excitement of the record, as if he singing it at a packed local honky tonk in front of her and all of his buddies. I’ve always loved his ad-libs at the end, too, with the Big Bopper one standing out simply because when was the last time any other country song or singer saluted the Big Bopper? The way he yells out “Hey! Don’t forget to turn out the lights!” still makes me laugh, as well, lol.
Every time I would catch the song’s music video on GAC back then, it would always remind me of the “Picture in a picture” (or PIP for short) feature that was the new hot thing among many brand new television sets around that time, especially Sony TV’s. Basically, it was a cool way to watch more than one channel at the same time with the main screen showing one thing, and one or more mini boxes in the corners of the screen showing something else. So yeah, I remember thinking “Hey cool, this entire video is in PIP!” the first few times seeing this video, lol. It actually looks like a kid is toying with the TV’s special features while the video is playing, lol. It gives me a lot of mid 90’s nostalgia, since I was often hanging around the TV section in stores like Circuit City, Incredible Universe, and Best Buy back then (and also playing video games) :)
This was another one of the more fun songs on the radio that made listening to country radio exciting in 1995 and the following two years. I also remember hearing this song playing in the background during a bar scene in the Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid movie, Something To Talk About, while we were watching it in the movie theater that year. :)
I agree that the All I Want album was a major step up in quality compared to his previous album. Besides the singles, I also love many of the album cuts, especially “I Didn’t Ask and She Didn’t Say,” “The Great Divide,” “When She Wakes Up (And Finds Me Gone).” It’s actually one of my favorite 90’s McGraw albums.