YouSaid · the spoken record

Tim McGraw

lines on the record: 141
first: 2026-02-04
most recent: 2026-02-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It diges and pains. I would have waited for that. Although, as you said, I honestly believe that if I hadn't decided that I was just going to get myself back in shape, because I'd always stayed in shape, but after having kids and stuff, you hear eating chicken nuggets all the time. So I sort of let myself go for a little while. I did a movie called Four Christmases, which I've never seen, still haven't seen to this day.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, trained less for sure. And paid more attention to small aches and pains instead of waiting until they were debilitating.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To carry me backstage, I'd get on stage, fake it through the show without acting like I was leping too badly. And then they would carry me back to the bus after the show. And then right after that tour, I had to spend a month just sort of prepping myself for surgery. And then I went straight in and had the double knee replacements. And then another back surgery after that.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I got up, went to the gym. So I spent two years in the gym just on the treadmill doing anything I could to try to stay in shape where I had to lean over the treadmill to walk because I couldn't stand up straight just to get walking in. Brutal. And then doing the show, we finished out the tour where they literally”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I went to bed that night, and I woke up next morning from my hips to my ankles, my legs were twice the size that they were before I went to sleep swollen.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little off kilter. It didn't feel right to me. And I could tell that they were trying to figure out what the hell was going on, too. So it was just, it was uncomfortable. But we got through them and it worked out. And I tweaked myself a little bit a few times with my knee. And I'd had some knee trouble before at 20. I had a meniscus done on my scoped on my left knee. And at 30, I had a meniscus on my right knee. But they haven't bothered me. I think my problem is I have really high pain tolerance. I remember specifically We were in Montreal and I think it was three weeks into the tour, maybe four weeks into the tour. We were in Montreal and my knees were hurt and my back was hurting. Things were starting to fall apart. And I remember turning just a normal turn and felt both my knees just felt like they exploded.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Job pajamas or whatever it is You do not look fat. But I'm standing on stage and I got this big dyed black beard and I'm thinking, these people are thinking that I'm dyeing my beard to look young because my beard's gray. I mean, my beard's snow white. And I had this big black beard on. So I was just so uncomfortable on stage and worn out and tired. Were you uncomfortable?”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not only was I tired though, I was strangely uncomfortable on stage during that because I had this big beard on and people didn't know what I was doing because we were filming a show that wasn't out yet. So, people didn't know what I was doing, and I'd put on about, I tried to a couple times, but you know, and I'd put on about 10 pounds of weight because there's just protein everywhere. So, I mean, it wasn't fat or anything, but I was working out steady work, but they always had steak and stuff. It wasn't fat”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That being said, I'm sure that I hastened all of my injuries. But I remember specifically when it happened, it was, you know, 1883, when we shot 1883, that was pretty physically demanding that Morris out pretty good. That was six months, six days a week, 16 hours a day pretty much solid. And at the time, I was doing shows while we were doing because I'd have had shows booked. I would work till filming till seven run and jump on a plane, go to a show, get back at three in the morning or two in the morning, get up at four, try to get a workout in, and then be in the makeup trade, go to the next day.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mostly weights and some cardio. And then. Before lunch would be running the arena or stadium stairs and doing a discipline at the top of each stairs. Push up or squat or ab or something. So you run all the stairs, and then we take a break and eat, take a nap or whatever. And then at 2 2 30, we go out for an hour and a half and do the outside stuff. Border column.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And they were distinctly different exercises. And the afternoon exercise was sort of an outdoor CrossFit thing with the whole band. So that was like an hour and a half. Then I would do my two hour workout in the morning.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's changed a little bit. I have to be a lot more deliberate and a lot more careful. I'm sure that my workout routine, my three workouts a day and three outout”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Metaphorically and literally when I'm working, I like to be hungry. I don't like to eat before I go on stage because I like to be hungry for that reason because metaphorically it works for me.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I don't. Know that anybody wants to see that from me. So if I can't go do the shows the way I do shows and the way that I have fun doing shows, then I'm not going to give everybody what they're paying for. And I'm not going to get satisfaction out of it. So there was a time where until the last back surgery that actually worked knock on wood that I didn't think I was going to be able to make it back. And not make it back the way I wanted to make it back. Now my focus is back. My body's back. My brain fog's clearing up from all the anesthesia. So I'm feeling like I'm back on a good path. I'm actually feeling like I've got a second win now and something to prove, which is good for me because I need that. I want to be the underdog. I want to be the guy nobody expects it to work. You know, I want to be that guy.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With the surgeries I've had four back surgeries and double knee replacements. Tried to work through all of it and did work through all of it. But there was a moment in time back in the spring this year after my third back surgery or was it last year? All the years running together. Anyway, after my third back surgery, when it just didn't work, that I thought that I was going to really. Looking at not being able to do this anymore because I can't imagine not doing it the way that I do it. There's no way that I'm going to go out there and sit on a stool and sing for an hour and a half. It's physically impossible for me to do.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm all over the place, but yeah, focus is the biggest word, I think, in my vocabulary when it comes to what I do for a living. Because the times where I'm not focused are the times things aren't working. I tell you that the last three years have been tough to focus with what I've gone with.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And again, we're so lucky as artists, writers, musicians, whatever you are as an artist, because that's therapy. You have your own built-in therapeutic machine.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back again, also to not letting the audience determine what you do. That's really true because, like you said, you can get lost. If you start chasing what you think people want to hear, then you're in trouble then. I think you got to chase what you want to hear and what you want to play. And look, my taste is not going to match up with everybody's taste. And probably less and less people's taste as the days go forward. Who knows? It may grow more. I don't know. But I have to cut stuff that speaks to me. If it doesn't speak to me, especially if I didn't write it, if it doesn't speak to me and I can interpret it in a way that speaks from my heart and speaks to someone else, if it doesn't speak to me first, there's no way I'm going to make it speak to somebody else.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not work. Not working. No working. Like you said, you try things out. Musicians, comedians, writers. I do the same thing. If I run across a new song that I really like, I have the band work it up. So let's play it a couple of times live and see what their reaction is. Now, there's a caveat to that because when, as I've been doing this for 35 years now, so when you have songs people expect to hear and then you throw a new one in on them. Sometimes you get the reaction is not exactly what you want it to be, but it's not necessarily the reaction that you're going to get if they know the song. So there's a little bit of Curve that you have to put on when you're doing it. Yeah.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Multiple times a night In your process when you're writing a book and you're talking about trying material out people, do you have an idea or a nugget of what you want to do? And then you just start riffing on it around people just to sort of get feedback.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was an obvious choice. Yeah, and I wasn't too worried because the song was done so well. And I just thought there's no upside here to doing part of this song. It's not going to do anything for me. It's not going to do anything for anybody else.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They wanted me to do Don't Take the Girl, but they only gave me three minutes and the song's five minutes. And I was trying to explain to them that there's no way to sing this song without telling the complete story or it wouldn't make sense. So I actually turned down my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That song was just so powerful and such a great story. It was the epitome of what country music is all about, a great story that gets right to the heart of the matter, that hits right to the emotion, leaves it a little open-ended, and makes you guess a little bit about what happened. But to this day, singing that song, there are times where it chokes me up still every time. And that song was one of my first stances as an artist to where I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing or not, but it was my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs after Don't Take the Girl came out. And Walter was the guy he used to run the CMAs. Remember Walter?”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it was different, and I understood why it was controversial because it was stereotypical, it was sort of a, you know, a play on Native American stereotypes. And there was a lot of controversy around it. And I understood the controversy and I wasn't upset about the controversy. In fact, I met with several Native American leaders. Some liked the song, some didn't like the song. And my answer was, look, I understand what your concerns are. The song's not meant to be that way. I understand your concerns. My opinion. If you need to go after me in order to raise attention and awareness to your cause, by all means, use my song for that. So if you like it or don't like it, if you can make something good happen from it, then by all means, I'm not going to be offended. And now when I play Native American casinos, I always, when I meet with the elders or the chiefs before the show, I always say, you know, I have Indian outlaw on my set, but I'm happy to take it out if it's offensive. And invariably.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I didn't have any say so on the first album. So when I cut the second album, that's where we're cutting, period. And when we cut it, I felt like this is either going to work in a huge way or it's going to ruin my career forever. Luckily it worked. I think the fortunate thing it worked and I think that what Kept me from being just sort of a novelty act Had this sort of funky, weird song that made some noise was being able to come right behind it, but don't take the girl. I'll forever believe that the combination of those two songs What set my career in motion and gave me momentum that I probably couldn't have gotten any other way.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Tommy played Indian Outlaw, and I don't want to be there in the morning when she wakes up and finds me gone, which ended up cutting both of those. Have three more songs of his that I heard that first night that I'm going to cut eventually. But Indian Outlaw heard that first night. And I started playing it immediately, learned it, started playing it in all the clubs around town, the honky talks around town. When we would go travel and play clubs all over the country, I was playing that song and we'd end up having to play it two or three times a night, four times a night, because people loved it so much. And I kept telling the label when I was going in to cut my first record. This was before I had a record. You knew it worked. I knew it worked.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got to Nashu at one or two in the morning on a Greyhound bus, walked down to the Hall of Fame lounge and hotel where I ended up staying for a couple of weeks, walked into the bar and everybody was closing down. The band was packing up. And Tommy Barnes and Max D Barnes were sitting at the bar, I think it's Max D Barnes. He's sitting at the bar. The bar is closing down. So I walk in and just ordered a beer. She said, We just had last call, but I'll give you a beer. I sat down, so I started talking to these two guys. So Tommy says, you have a room? And I said, yay. So let's go and play some music. So me, Tommy, and Max Barnes went up and started playing music.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They just said it was too controversial and it was a bad song. It wasn't country music. It won't work on radio. All the things that they were right about. I heard that song the first night I moved to Nashville.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would like to say it was Don't Take the Girl, but I didn't feel that way after we recorded it because I never felt like I captured exactly what I wanted on that record until we finally finished it. We finally finished it, I felt like we had it. But in the process of it, I felt like a struggle on that song. But Indian Outlaw, because I had that song for my first album and nobody liked it. The label didn't like it. James Stroud didn't like it. Byron liked it. But I couldn't talk James and it let me record it and I couldn't talk the label into letting me record it. What are the reasons?”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you're in the studio that late, it just felt like there was magic in the air at that moment, and we wanted to capture it. And we always like to say, you know, you can have the greatest song in the world, greatest band in the world, greatest singer in the world, which I am not. But you can have all those factors, and it's still not work. And we always say sometimes God just walks through the room.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As I looked at my uncle, it just felt like that I was being told to cut this song. The vibes coming off of him, what I was feeling at the time, and I think we had just cut something really up tempo and pretty rock. And I don't know. It was the mood, the snow outside, the fireplaces. My uncle sitting there being so late at night maybe. There was a melancholy that sort of struck at that time. I'm sure there were some other factors that might have been involved that struck about that.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tug had only been gone for a couple of weeks and then hang telling the stories afterwards. I have to believe that all of that went into that record.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cut live like you were dying. So we just finished a song. We were doing some overdubs. I gathered everybody around and I gathered Hank around and I asked everybody what their opinion was. They felt like tackling that song. So about two in the morning, we cranked it up. Before the sun came up, we had that song done. And it was so tough because I'm sitting in the booth, in the glass booth recording this song, you know, directing the band, you know, getting the parts right. Can't help but watch my Uncle Hank the entire time that we're doing it. And he's just in a puddle over in the corner. And then he's laughing. And then he starts telling stories about Tug after things. So we recorded the song. We got finished probably about four or five in the morning. And then we just sat and listened to Uncle Hank tell stories about Tug for the rest of the night. And I have to believe that all that magic of that night of Hank being there.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Six or seven days into the recording process, and we would start late and we would go till three or four in the morning recording. And I remember it was about one in the morning, and I had this glass booth built in the middle of the studio so I could see everybody. And there was fireplaces at each end, and the fireplaces were roaring. I had my glass booth in the middle. We were cutting this on. My uncle Hank was smoking a joint. If you know my uncle Hank, he's passed away. He passed away last year now. He was all American athlete, three sports, played pro baseball for 13 years greatest guy in the world. Looked just like Sam Elliott, but was a podhead from day one. So I watched him and he was sitting over there and I just got to thinking I thought, you know, this might be a good time.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sent two semi trucks full of Persian rugs and furniture and just deck the place out for the band and myself for three weeks while we were cutting. And my dad's older brother, Hank, I invited him to come hang with us because, you know, Tug had just died and I know he wasn't doing very well. So I invited him to come hang with us while we were recording. And it was probably.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I never played it for my dad. He was sick at the time. I just felt that it was not appropriate to play a song about dying to your dad who was dying. Although I'm sure he would have loved the idea of having a song that was about him or inspired by him. I didn't play it for him. I had the song. In his last days, he was at our farm in the cabin at our farm. That's where he wanted to be for his last days and spent a lot of time with him. I think it was right around two weeks, two to three weeks after he passed away that we went to the studio to record. And we recorded an upstate New York at a place right outside of Woodstock at a place called O'Lair Studios. You know, it's beautiful. It's an old Dutch farmhouse and barn up on top of a mountain. Beautiful. We had like three foot of snow. We were there for three weeks.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. The Genesis, you know, probably live like you were dying would be a good place to start because that song came to me. It was right after my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, glioblastoma. And Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman sent that song to me. They wrote it. About my dad when I found out that that was happening and sent it to me.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But every now and then something comes along that's funny, you just do it because you're an artist and you're telling a story and you do it. But I gravitate more towards songs now that not only have meaning to me, but I think people can find a deeper meaning in their own situation and their own life.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, one thing that doesn't change is great songs. That's the first check, should be the first check on any artist list. I mean, I write, I write for every project, and I've been lucky enough to have some success with some of the things I write. But for me, the song always has to win wherever the song comes from, that's what it's going to be. And I listen to songs constantly. I'm constantly writing, constantly listening. I'm hard on my own songs. That's probably why I haven't cut as many. But my process is pretty much the same. I think material-wise, I look for different kinds of music than I used to. I still like fun songs. And if I find the right fun song, I'll do it. But it's tougher at a certain age to sing about, you know, Daisy Dukes and Tailgates all the time. It just doesn't quite ring true to me.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know. And when I first moved here in 89, all of that cool springs, all that stuff was still all countryside. And I remember land being not very expensive out there. And I didn't have two nickels or rubbed here. I'm thinking, man, if I could just buy some land out here and build me a little cab and find me a club gig, you know, it really would be great and cut to two years later and it's just everything's through the roof. I mean, it's just going crazy. And then it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's incredible and it changes every day. I mean, I get lost anytime I come downtown, I get lost because everything looks so different.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT