Until the moment that Taylor Swift introduced herself to Tim McGraw, immediately after singing the song "Tim McGraw" to him, I hadn't even considered the possibility that Taylor Swift hadn't met Tim McGraw. For all I knew, "Tim McGraw," the song, was just a brand-extension strategy for Tim McGraw, the guy. Tim McGraw was on top of the country music universe in 2007.
He'd been in the game for more than a decade. He already had two greatest-hits albums. He was (and is) married to fellow superstar Faith Hill, and they filled arenas together.
He'd already made his crossover hit with Nelly and his cinematic debut in Friday Night Lights. And he got to sit there in the front row and watch a next-generation superstar, one whose career would soon eclipse his own in every conceivable way, turn his name into a reference. We should all be so lucky.
Taylor Swift met Tim McGraw in May 2007 at the ACM Awards, the less prestigious of the two annual mainstream country awards shows. Both Swift and McGraw went home empty-handed that night. McGraw lost Entertainer Of The Year, the night's big award, to Kenny Chesney.
Swift lost Top New Female Vocalist Of The Year, the kind of award that could only exist on a show like the ACMs, to Miranda Lambert, who deserved her win. (I didn't write an Anniversary piece about Lambert's 2005 debut Kerosene, but that's a better album than the very good one that I'm writing about today.) Swift really should've met McGraw before that night. They lived in the same town and worked in the same business. She'd already named her debut single after him, and it had already been a top-10 country hit.
If someone named a hit song after me, I would probably go out of my way to meet that person. Tim McGraw didn't do that. The on-camera meeting between Swift and McGraw could be a lie, of course.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
