Tim McGraw has said that his mother had a “complete meltdown” after hearing the heartbreaking song ‘I Called Mama’ off his new Here On Earth album for the first time.

Tim stated in an exclusive new interview with Smooth Country that the song dedication had his mother in tears – and that her photo now serves as the artwork for the tune.

Tim, 53, also revealed guidance from his mother, Betty Trimble, over the years.

“My mom has given me a lot of advice, whether I wanted it or not,” Tim told Smooth Country. “She has provided me with excellent advice and continues to do so.”

“My mother, on the other hand, has always been very close to me. I sent it to her for the first time. She is a piece of art. The single’s cover is a snapshot of my mother in high school, soon before she found out about me.”

“But then I sent her the song, and all I got were crying emojis in return. So I knew I shouldn’t call her because I knew she’d freak out when she heard the song.”

“And that song evolved in a different way for us because when we first recorded it, it was definitely about something hitting you hard in life and going to who your backbone is and who your stabilizing forces are in your life. And for most individuals, that’s their mother. It most emphatically is for me.”

“But then, as the world changed and we were mixing and finishing up the song, it really became about a much bigger thing,” he told Smooth Country’s Rory O’Connor.

“It came down to, who are the people in your life on whom you can lean in times like this?”

“More importantly, I believe it made you consider who the people are who look to you as the rock they can lean on when times get tough – and can you be there for them?”

Tim recognized that releasing an album in 2020 became more difficult, but added, “Fortunately, we’d gotten most of it done. We’d just finished recording two or three songs when the lockdown began; we recorded the final sections of the songs right before it started.”

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