Tim McGraw has returned with his first new solo music in over two years! The country superstar released his brand new single "Neon Church," as well as another song called "Thought About You," produced by McGraw and his longtime collaborator Byron Gallimore.
Last week, McGraw had cleared his social media accounts, and shared the very first lyrics to "Neon Church" which are "I need Jesus or I need whiskey," as well as a phone number (615-205-5687) for fans to text to join McGrawONE. Through McGrawONE fans will receive exclusive content, photos and videos from Tim via text message.
"Neon Church" speaks to the neon signs you see in bars and honky tonks, where Tim used to play as a teenager. McGraw explains to iHeartRadio of the song, "I looked at it from the point of view, coming up playing clubs and playing bars since I was, you know, 17/18 years old, playing bars. When you're sort of in that pulpit so to speak, up on the stage, and you look out across a bar, you see a lot of life go by you. And you see a lot of different scenarios of people going through a lot of different stages and parts in their life."
He adds, "As an artist, part of what you do and part of what creates your art is your observance of people. And, certainly when you see this or hear this, it reminds you of that. It also reminds me a little bit, oddly enough, I don't know if oddly but, From Dusk till Dawn. The bar in the middle of the desert in Mexico, all the vampires. For some reason it reminds me of that a little bit."
Tim says he first heard "Neon Church" while waiting to pick up his daughter at her school, and after listening to it, he instantly realized there was "something special" about the track. He explains, "When you hear the first line, 'I need whiskey or I need Jesus,' I mean, right off the bat it's like, 'Man, I want to see where this goes.' And then, when you hear the rest of it, every lyric is so well-placed in this song. There's not even a throwaway 'if,' 'and,' or 'but' in this song. Everything has meaning to it."
McGraw adds, "When it came time to go into the studio and record it, I really wanted to try and build a big record around this and a big sound around this. 'Cause I wanted you to almost feel the flames lickin' at you, you know? From hell. Comin' at you with the guitars. And then when we got in there, it was like, 'Man. This really has a ... we could throw some Purple Rain kinda guitars on this and really make it sound good.' We talked to Michael Landau who was playing guitar on it; Michael and Dave Levita. [And] said, 'Hey, Michael. How about a little Prince guitar, man?' He just went right into it and we were like, home run, high fivin' everything. It was just a magical moment."
Listen to Tim McGraw's new single "Neon Church" above.