The Singles Jukebox

Windbag or troubadour? We’ll never be rid of him.

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[4.57]

Iain Mew: The lyrics are perpendicular enough to my life that there’s no sting in even the line about “trendy crap” music. It’s a love letter to a faraway world, and for all that he sets it up in opposition, the thing which gets through to me in every nostalgia-soaked moment is the love.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Goddamn it — I can never count this fucker out. He hooked me from the brisk acoustic opening and, like he did with 2014’s “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s,” the warmth of his vocal.. Even with stock images like “stray dogs and gee-tars playing'” and bullshit about things used to be before he sauced his voice with a lil AutoTune, “How I’ll Always Be” projects confidence, not reaction; it’s the best of the nostalgic beer-and-girls tracks on modern country radio.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: The dog-whistling is kept to a light piccolo; “a little more bust ya back than take it for free” (those fancy barflies and their taxes, man!); “a little more ol’ Hank Williams than that trendy crap” (as if mentions of Hank weren’t a trend themselves, or if Tim’s voice wasn’t pinched with autotune that hadn’t always been there.) The rest alternates stock with silly; the piano belongs in a better song.
[4]

Katie Gill: A friend recently linked me to a great Bo Burnham bit about how modern country music is made by these superstars writing songs from their mansions pandering to working-class America. While I don’t entirely agree with that assessment, it can’t help but play in the back of my head as I listen to this song. Yeah, McGraw might have a million dollar career because he’s been in country music twenty years now, but he’ll ALWAYS be simple and homebody and trucks. I don’t think I buy that.
[4]

Anthony Easton: When Tom T Hall sang about everything he loved, you kind of got the impression that he was sort of kidding and sort of serious, and the ambivalence marked a tenderness of not knowing. You believed him, because it was on the edge of not believing himself. He kept the cheese in check by a writerly self-awareness. McGraw has always been cynical, and he has that self awareness, but this is so self aggrandising that nothing is kept in check, but he hasn’t earned the swagger (his best work is when he is quiet and rueful, maybe he will never earn the strut). Would have been better done by Toby Keith or even Brantley Gilbert.  
[2]

Cassy Gress: I know there are thousands — millions — of Americans who strongly identify with lyrics like this, but all I can think is how this is yet another song about how proud a country star is to be into cheap beer and simple things and not that “trendy crap.” He’s rough but still goes to church, he talks about “the first time she lets you kiss her,” hometowns, Hank Williams, check, check, check, full completion marks for you, Tim McGraw. And then he throws in a chorus he has to stretch to sing with some Bruce Hornsby-esque piano tinkling in the background.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t recall Tim being ’80s soft rock, but there you go; it’s not a bad sound on him. Judging by his voice on the chorus, there must be some horrible takes left in the studio because he sounds utterly uncomfortable, so there’s another thing I don’t quite believe about the song. Sounds nice, though.
[6]