Tim McGraw Wanted to Make ‘Here on Earth’ a Double Album

Tim McGraw‘s upcoming Here on Earth album has 18 songs, an almost unheard of amount on a record anymore. While it might seem like a lot, the 53-year-old initially wanted to have a lot more on the project.

“I wanted to do even more,” Tim admitted to CMT. “We recorded over 25, but we mixed out 25 songs. I loved every one of them. The hardest part — at first I wanted to narrow the album down to 12. And then as I went through the process, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get it narrowed down. There were so many songs.

“The songs that didn’t get on the album are still songs that I hope will show up some other time,” he added. “I wanted to do a big double album with 20, 25 sides. It’s just tough to hold people’s attention that long. I hope I can hold them long enough to listen to the 18 that we do have.”

Here on Earth includes the poignant  “I Called Mama,” but the singer says there are several songs that will deliver an emotional punch on his next set of tunes.

“I want people to have an emotional connection, with characters, throughout the album,” Tim shared. “I didn’t really set out to make a concept album, but I did want to make an album that was sort of a tapestry of life in a lot of ways. Every song is sort of a vignette of parts of life that you go through as part of this path that we walk down.

“They’re not necessarily congruent, but they are really stuff that connects you to who you are and where you’re at and where you’ve been in life,” he continued. “I think that even if you can’t relate to what the song’s talking about specifically or the subject matter, I think you can find a way to make it relate to something in your life or some path that you’ve walked.”

Tim just announced a livestream event on August 21 to celebrate the release of Here on Earth.

Pre-order the album via Amazon or Tim’s website.