Thomas Inskeep directs us towards an uncharacteristic country hit…

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Alfred Soto: Fabulous title! Acoustic intro, McGraw and Hill’s voices entangling like vines as sweetly as they did on 2007’s “I Need You.” Consider it one of the more convincing attempts of recent years at early McCartney-McCartney (that’s Linda) domestic tranquility.
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Patrick St. Michel: Although the number I write on visa papers doesn’t show it, this was the year I slid into being an “old,” where my search engine history shifted from “what’s happening Friday night” to “how do I save for retirement.” I’m not sure how hearing something like “Meanwhile Back At Mama’s” would have hit me a year ago, let alone two or three — I think I would have appreciated Tim McGraw’s description of a small town like where I grew up, though I wouldn’t have been so eager to revisit it. I probably would have been more interested in how starkly this contrasts with bro-country stomp of the charts, and would probably want to choose a side, but now I’m OK just letting younger people put Drake and Hank on the same tape. And maybe I’d be a bit more weary about the “world gone crazy bit,” the one part that still slips this up a bit, but the vagueness in that line is enough for me to jump right into this one. Now, all I can hear is an achingly sweet pine for simpler times, and I’ve reached the point where that sort of thing really kicks up memories I spent so long moving away from.
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Sonia Yang: I grew up in a suburb half an hour away from a congested major city so I can’t relate to any of the small town anecdotes, but longing for the simple pleasures of life is universal. The best lines are “Funny the things you thought you’d never miss / In a world gone crazy as this,” because the truth is it’s the small, seemingly insignificant aspects unique to one’s life that really spark nostalgia. The arrangement is appropriately sparse and the understated harmonies are pretty. Side note: this is the route I wish Miley Cyrus had gone down.
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Brad Shoup: As a partially reconstructed dirtbag, the parts that stuck out were the beers and the whiskey and the cigarettes. The McGrills are gonna have to do some fumigating, sounds like. It’s the planning that does it: the brand-new truck is set up for the loan-to-own close. You’d think farming would be just as stressful as whatever bedroom community he’s leaving behind, but I guess they’ve thought about it. Tim’s so still and small here, clutching to the meter; Faith is here for moral support, I’d imagine. The dream is compelling, but the production ain’t.
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David Sheffieck: There’s not nearly enough Faith Hill on this song. On his own, McGraw can’t conjure the emotion that the feather-light production needs to take flight. But whenever she drops in — which happens seemingly at random — there’s a genuine sense of pathos to the song. It’d be nice if they had taken advantage of it.
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Anthony Easton: This is very pretty. It’s much better than other recent McGraw tracks, it has some substantial lyrics (the credit/cash line), and how he extends his vocals is a fantastic formal gesture. I wonder if it is a statement about Nashville itself; if the nostalgia is part and parcel of the genre or if it is is arguing against recent innovations. I also think that Faith Hill has been so great for so long that I keep wanting her to return to full force, and her adding minimal filigree to a song that feels competent but unresolved is frustrating at best. 
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Josh Langhoff: McGraw longs for simpler times, when singers could make entire songs out of a couple repeated melodic phrases. (A pre-chorus pokes its head out and quickly ducks away, never to return.) The lyric, though, is a model of Nashville sophistication: “meanwhile” turns into “me ‘n’ you,” the truck in verse one becomes a down payment at the end, and after a while I was invested enough in Mama’s house that the appearance of a “For Sale” sign made me shudder. The words even use that repeated melody to their advantage when McGraw rattles off a list of the things he misses, his sighs of “I miss” tugging against the chorus’s upper range.
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Thomas Inskeep: This lovely, hushed ode to a simpler life — of course, from one of the biggest country superstars of the last 20 years, with his equally superstar wife assisting on harmonies — feels like a really radical move from McGraw, especially as the lead single from an album intended to continue his renewed commercial hot streak. Which makes me love it even more. All brushed snares, gently picked guitars, and some of the smoothest vocals I’ve ever heard from McGraw and Hill, they’re singing this like they mean it: which I sincerely suspect they do. The real-life Luke and Rayna have never sounded better than they do on “Mama’s,” and this is hands-down one of not only McGraw’s career highlights, but one of 2014’s finest country singles. 
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