Today, June 19 marks the 11th anniversary of Taylor Swift’s debut single “Tim McGraw”.
Swift has come so far since her debut single “Tim McGraw,” and we can’t even believe how much she has accomplished in only 11 years. Do you remember the first time you heard “Tim McGraw” on the radio? Or watched the music video and swooned over Swift’s curly hair and her cowboy boots?
It’s been a long but successful road for Swift, and “Tim McGraw” was the start of it all. Swift described how much the song meant to her in a press release back in 2006. “This song means so much to me, that’s why we wanted it to be the first track on the album. The idea for this song came to me in math class. I just started singing to myself, ‘When you think Tim McGraw.’ The concept for this song hit me because I was dating a guy who moved away, and it was going to be over for us,” she states. “So I started thinking of things that I knew would remind him of me. The first thing that came to mind was that my favorite song is by Tim McGraw. After school, I went downtown, sat down at the piano, and wrote this with Liz Rose in fifteen minutes. It may be the best fifteen minutes I’ve ever experienced.”
“So I started thinking of things that I knew would remind him of me. The first thing that came to mind was that my favorite song is by Tim McGraw,” she says. “After school, I went downtown, sat down at the piano, and wrote this with Liz Rose in fifteen minutes. It may be the best fifteen minutes I’ve ever experienced.”
Although this was Swift’s debut single, it had reached No.6 on the country charts and No.40 on the Hot 100. This was a very impressive showing for a new artist, and little did we all know that this streak would continue on throughout Swift’s career.
Tim McGraw was flattered by the reference after he found about the song. “I didn’t know if I should feel honored or just old,” McGraw says. “But I found out she was about 14 and in math class when she wrote that, which made me feel better. She was pretty nervous when we first met, but it was fine. I told her I appreciated it. It’s cool to have a song written about you, especially by a teenager. I didn’t think any teenagers even knew who I was.”
Ever since then, Swift has made her mark to become the most famous pop star of our generation, and it all started with a country song. Watch the music video for Swift’s debut single below: