60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Live Like You Were Dying”— Tim McGraw

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

This week, Rob puts his pretensions about country music aside with a closer look at Tim McGraw’s simple but moving song, “Live Like You Were Dying,” that encourages even the most sarcastic of 20-something-year-olds to romanticize their life. He talks about his late father-in-law who shared the same zest for life as the song’s narrator, and he encourages all his listeners to go sky diving, rocky mountain climbing, and to share a song they love with someone they love. Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Olivia Crerie, Chris Sutton, and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Danny Kelly, and it's officially fantasy football season, which means the Ringer Fantasy Football Show is back with the latest news from around the NFL and everything you need to get ready for the fantasy football season. So join us at the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify or on our new YouTube channel. Interstate 880. I was heading south on 880 in Northern California, driving from Oakland down toward San Jose. That's when I first heard it.

early evening sunset perhaps i might have been passing right by oracle arena where the golden state warriors used to play and oakland coliseum where the oakland days used to play right when the song started but that detail is a little too specific too florid too romantic that part's probably made up i probably made up the sunset too obviously but eight 80 i remember i'm heading south on 880 from Oakland towards San Jose and I got the radio on. I got country radio on.

You said I was in my early 40s with a lot of life before me when a moment came that stopped me on a dime. Here we have country music superstar Tim McGraw singing a song he released

in 2004. And myself, I'm in my mid-20. here in 2004 when I first hear Tim McGrath sing the words. I was in my early 40s with a lot of life before me. And so unavoidably, I first hear these lines through the foggy arrogance of relative youth. See, Tim, I've got even more of my life before me. And as for the life I've lived already, I'm proud to say that I haven't spent much of that time taking country music that seriously. I do not yet take country music terribly seriously. I'm getting into country, finally,

but I'm still putting getting into country in scare quotes. I'm listening to country music in a tentative, arm's length, faux intellectual, almost smug sort of way. Like I'm doing country music a favor. I'm like, yeah, okay, maybe these Brooks and Dunn guys are cool, but they're not as cool as like arcade fire.

You know, I've still got a snotty alt-rock teenager turned indie rock adult mentality. And I am learning to love country songs the same way I love indie rock songs. But any country song that permeates my semi-consciousness still has to pass through a thin but tangible irony barrier. First, I almost got to like the country song as a joke. Okay? And so as I rumble down 880, I roll my eyes, perhaps, right here when Tim puts a little extra schmalt on the line talking about sweet time. But I miss the blunt, the shattering, the masterfully plain spoken, total lack of schmaltz Tim puts on the line talking about the options. I spent most of the next days

Looking at the x-rays Talking about the options And talking about sweet time Yeah, I've been listening to this new to me country song for just 45 seconds But I'm already super locked in I am listening hard I have alarmed myself With how hard I am listening

And so subconsciously I'm already trying to convince myself that Tim McGraw lacks the fundamental artistry and sophistication of like Wilco or Joanna Newsom. But consciously already, it ain't working. Truth is, I've already

fully bought into Tim McGraw's artistry and sophistication. If you want the truth, the loaded and poignant and terrible word x-rays was the moment where I fully bought in. We ain't even hit the pre-chorus yet and I'm already fully emotional

invested. I asked him when it sank in that this might really be the real in. How's it hit you? When you get that kind of news, man, what you do? And he said. And for a split second, I cling to the man,

what you do right there. The smug, indie, rocking, foggy arrogance of relative youth part of my brain tries to seize on the cheeseball barroom conversational tone of this. this song. This song unambiguously about a guy who has a huge health scare and it turbocharges his will to live as a way of diminishing, of disqualifying this song from true greatness. But then

the chorus hits. And yeah, my attempt to convince myself that I only dig this song ironically, this ain't going to work. It turns out Tim McGraw sincerely kicks ass. climbing up in 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu. Okay. Is this phrase a Rocky Mountain climbing a bit cheeseball? Sure. Is the doodly super macho man's specificity of I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu a bit cheeseball? Absolutely. This may shock you, but I myself don't have much rodeo experience, though I'm guessing 2.7 seconds is not a very long time to last even on a bull named Fumanchu. Given that I'm in my mid-20s and therefore in peak physical condition, I'm guessing that I myself could have lasted at least like 4.5

seconds on Fumanchu. I'm just saying, is this whole chorus and really this whole song a bit cheeseball in its unabashed sentimentality and grandiosity and commitment to ferocious beer commercial type uplift? Sure. But also, this chord change right here, my friends, it's coming and you are not prepared. The first chord change here, the minor fall implied by this major lift, the glorious assent here from Google G to B7, right on the words, spoke sweeter. This is the moment. this is the final heroic Rocky Mountain climbing push to the summit of true greatness. This is some legit one small melodic step for man, one giant leap for mankind, shit. All four of my tires lifted off the road on the words spoke sweeter.

That is an apex mountain chord change. my friends, and I love deeper, and I spoke sweeter, astounding. That's a G to a B-7. I looked it up. I don't want to oversell my elitism, my smug mid-20s, antipathy toward country music. Let's not overdo the self-deprecation

here. Though I do wonder why I'm listening to Country Radio right this second. The likely answer is that KMEL was doing commercials. KMEL, the beloved, my beloved Bay Area Rap Station, 106.1, KMEL, that's my eternal jam, right? That's my first choice in the car. The whole time I lived in Oakland in the mid-2000s. So I can hear E-40, Kik to Sneak, the Federation. Another time. I love KMEL. And if KMEL is doing commercials, I got a solid second choice radio-wise. I jumped a live

105-5, the All-Rock Station, 105.3. So I can hear what, Franz Ferdinand or the yeah, yeah, yeah, or whatever. So yeah, dollars to donuts, I am listening to Tim McGraw on the radio right now because KMEL was doing commercials. So I flipped the live 105, which was also doing commercials. So I started flipping around and I hit on, I'm guessing the country station KRTY, 95.3 out of San Jose. Actually, if we do want to crank up the self-deprecation and oversell my elitism toward country music, we could say that my driving south on 880 from Oakland toward San Jose. is relevant here because in my mid-20s brain, and also this is basically true objectively, but mostly it's in my mid-20s brain, Oakland is cool, but south of Oakland is less cool, broadly.

Yeah? You know what's south of Oakland, Fremont, the city of Fremont. You know what Fremont is? Fremont is the city. They're always threatening to move my beloved Oakland A's too. They're constantly threatening to build a new A's stadium in Fremont, and I hold that against Fremont. I take that threat personally, and I take it out on Fremont. You know where the A's play now?

Sacramento. You know what's actually in Fremont? The chain restaurants. As a mid-20s Oakland resident, I move there from Ohio, mind you. I am absolutely a dim-wit transplant. I don't know shit about California, not to be self-deprecating. as a proud, super knowledgeable Oakland resident, all I know about Fremont is that's where the chain restaurants are,

your olive gardens and red lobsters. Fremont's where I tape my girl to get all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster, and it's a two-hour wait on a Friday night. And I'm just sitting in the parking lot being all elitist. Like, these people live in the culinary mecca of Northern California, and they're waiting to eat at Red Lobster, as though I am not waiting alongside them. as though I too will not be scarfing down all you can eat shrimp in two hours.

This is the enlightened attitude I brought to country music at the time. What's with all these unsophisticated people enjoying this thing I would very much like to also enjoy? I don't mean to complain about radio stations doing commercials, by the way. I genuinely dig the rhythm of that. The way the commercials only build anticipation for when the music comes back. I've come to appreciate ad breaks as a fine art. Let me give you an example. That's how it's done.

Exceptional ad break right there, if I do say so myself. Simple, elegant, classic. But so if we want to really oversell my antipathy toward country music, we could say that I'm listening to country radio right this second because I'm driving south on 880 from Oakland toward San Jose, and I am using country music to smugly acquire a less cool south of Oakland mindset. I am putting myself in a Fremont mood. But that's overstating things.

That is excessively rude to both me and Fremont. Also, this Tim McGraw song is called Live Like You Were Dying. And you said someday I hope you get the chance. To live like you would die. And this is a genuinely beautiful, startling, arresting song. Live Like You Were Dying. This song was written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, and it appears on Tim McGraw's eighth studio album,

released in 2004 and called Live Like You Were Dying. This is a genuinely beautiful, startling, arresting song. But lyrically speaking, I am not accustomed to being spoken to so candidly. The phrase, live like you were dying, strikes me on first contact as alarmingly direct. I am alarmed at the sincerity and the straightforwardness here. And as a defense mechanism, I dismiss that sincerity and straightforwardness by describing it as cheeseball. I am a snotty alt-rock teenager turned indie rock adult. And I am accustomed to lyrical sentiments that are more abstract, cryptic.

guarded, irony-laced, or perhaps even irony poisoned. Though maybe it's my personal irony that poisons the song. Maybe some of those indie rock songs I loved were more direct than I was willing to admit. So, okay, another mid-2000 song that hit me incredibly hard on first listen. You know the great American indie rock band Silver Jews out of Hoboken, New Jersey, led by the poet and Oracle and American hero David Berman, the guy who once started a song with a line, in 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection.

That guy, in 2005, on first listen, I became completely enraptured by a new Silver Jews song that starts like this. This is from the 2005 Silver Jews album Tanglewood Numbers. And the personal details of my first listen here, are way less interesting, even to me. I was on the computer. But you can imagine my delight at a song

with the opening lines, fast cars, fine ass, these things will pass, and it won't get more profound. There's me chortling at my computer. There's me in my mid-20s in peak physical condition, enjoying this witty, silly, frivolous little tune

with no emotional stakes and no long-term philosophical implications for me whatsoever. No, sir. Also, this Silver Jew song is called, How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down? And what a delightful song title that is. That's a classic, silly, frivolous country music song title, if you want the truth.

How can I love you if you won't lie down? That's a she got the gold mine, I got the shaft type classic country song title. I gave her the ring and she gave me the finger, et cetera. And it just blew right by you, didn't it? Maybe it didn't. Probably it didn't. But at first, it blew right by me, the line before that.

Time is a game. Only children play well. What an incredible series of words that is. How true, how direct, how heartbreaking, how freighted with dire long-term philosophical implications for me. personally. This is the sort of music I prefer in the mid-2000s, in my mid-20s, songs with just enough cleverness and misdirection that I can overlook the often, in retrospect, very obvious and direct and devastating lyrical messages contained therein. Tim McGraw ain't doing that. Tim McGraw will not supply a fast car's fine ass. These things will pass to disguise, or at least soften the spiritual

blow of time is a game only children play well. No, in the second verse of Live Like You Are Dying, Tim simply continues to earnestly list things you might do when you realize you don't have an infinite amount of time

on earth in which to do things. He said I was finally the husband and most of time I wasn't and I became a friend a friend wouldn't like to have. That's such a phenomenally nimble delivery by Tim McGraw of such a phenomenally freighted rhyme right there.

I was finally the husband that most of the time I wasn't. Every person who's ever heard this song will imagine something different there in terms of what being the husband that most of the time I wasn't implies, what actions or inactions that line implies. And everyone will be right. Whatever you think Tim McGraw means by that, that's what he means. Live Like You Were Dying was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2005 Grammys, one of the big four Grammys categories. Song of the Year is the Songwriting Award, the best written song, whereas record of the year is the song with the best performance. Generally, the Grammys will bestow major category recognition onto one country song per year, if that. They will graciously honor your lady antebellums and rascal flats and so forth, one at a time.

Faith Hill and Leanne Womack were both nominated for Song of the Year in 2001, though. That's nice. So Live Like You Were Dying is a substantial and pretty rare crossover success, prestige-wise. It didn't win Song of the Year, though. Would you like to hear the five nominees for Song of the Year, the 2005 Grammys? Live Like You Are Dying. If I ain't Got You by Alicia Keys. Excellent.

Jesus Walks by Kanye West. This is the Grammy's year when Kanye lost Best New Artist to Maroon Five And Kanye's debut album, The College Dropout, lost album of the year To Genius Loves Company, A Late Period Ray Charles duets album? Look, Ray Charles is Ray Charles,

but the Grammys are the Grammys. That's all I'm saying. Sorry, Tim McGraw, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, also nominated for Song of the Year. Huba Stank the reason. Wow. Yes. Wow. Excellent. Wow. And the winner of the 2005 Grammy for Song of the Year. Daughters by John Mayer. Oh well. Speaking of phenomenally nimble rhymes, I also love the way Tim McGraw rhymes going fishing with imposition. And all of a sudden going fishing wasn't

such an imposition and I went three times that year I lost my damn. You know who would have loved this song? You know who maybe probably did love this song? And I just never got around to asking him

about it. In April, just a couple months back now, we lost my father-in-law, Jim. He'd been sick for a long time with a lot of close calls and hospital chaos, etc. So there was some peace. some sense of relief when he passed. Or maybe I just say that.

Jim loved country music. Jim loved a lot of things and a lot of people, and a lot of people loved him. Jim loved squirrels also. Maybe he hated squirrels, but he definitely loved hating squirrels. See, I was thinking recently about the very first time I met Jim,

which remains one of my all-time favorite introductions to anyone ever. I met Jim at his house in the living room of the house he'd lived in forever, the house my future wife had grown up in in Columbus, Ohio. And there's a whole cliched script, right, for this specific encounter, the meeting your girlfriend's dad encounter. Now, my role in this script, meeting the dad, in introducing myself to the dad as his daughter's new boyfriend,

my role is to project non-threatening, likable purity of intentions. Right? My job is to put my girlfriend's dad at ease and make him like me and trust me. I'm there, hat in hand, radiating outcast, Ms. Jackson, me and your daughter got a special thing going on energy. Ideally, only that one part of one outcast song, though. Whereas Jim's role in this encounter is to be the scary macho dad. He's supposed to answer the door holding a shotgun. gun. He's supposed to try to scare the hell out of me. You know, the scene in Bad Boys 2,

I bet Jim loved that movie. The scene in Bad Boys 2 where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence just shout jovial, profane, buddy cop movie abuse and point a gun at the poor kid who shows up with the door to take Martin Lawrence's daughter out on a date. The whole scene shot behind the poor kid's head with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence on either side of him. Russell, that kid's name was, I believe. Classic scene. That's the Maloney. level in overprotective energy, Jim is supposed to be radiating. Distrust and exasperation and the omnipresent threat of violence. At the very least, he's supposed to try to crush my hand when he shakes it as a sign of dominance.

Like he goes, hello son, nice to meet you. And he's got my hand in a death grip. And I'm supposed to just smile and radiate likeability, but also secretly fight back and try to crush his hand. like yes hello sir it's great to meet you too oh yeah and we're just locked there forever in a handshake crush off and eventually my girlfriend and her mom will walk in the room and jim and i will both be standing there violently shaking hands like that's not what happened when i met jim though none of that happened what happened what i remember first is jim just sitting in a comfy chair in his living room this beautifully furnished and serene living living

room. Lots of natural light, lots of plants, lots of family photos, lots of warmth and peace and comfort and satisfaction. I'd never met a man more sublimely in his element than Jim in this moment. Like the way a James Bond movie introduces you to the newest James Bond villain in his shark-infested secret lair or whatever, but it was the exact emotional opposite of that. Not like Jim's the king of his castle or anything so macho, just that he's in time. entirely at ease, completely at one with his environment. He's just a guy who has formed an eternal, tranquil bond with his house. And we shake hands normally, Jim and I, and we exchange pleasantries for like 30 seconds. I'm like, yes, hello, sir, it's great to meet you, blah, blah, blah. And then he

goes, I've been fighting with the squirrels in my backyard. And I go, what? And Jim proceeds to explain to me as we move to the window and we look out on his lush and serene and well-manicured backyard. Jim explains to me that the squirrels are messing with his plants and his bird feeders and whatnot and he's pissed and he's exploring different ways to combat this threat, these squirrels. And Jim goes, yeah, when you're at war with somebody, you sneak behind enemy lines and you physically sneak up behind your enemy and you just touch them on the shoulder and then you sneak away. That's all you do. You tap them on the shoulder and maybe they don't even notice. But this establishes dominance and demoralizes your enemy. I did that to the squirrels, but because

they're squirrels, I just pulled on their tails. And I go, you snuck up behind a squirrel and pulled its tail? And he goes, yes. And I go, oh, wow, this guy rules. That was Jim. Jim, who a couple years ago, in the midst of a totally unrelated conversation, he told everyone that one time he gave a bird mouth to mouth and the bird recovered and they're bros now. And the whole family's like what? And Jim explains how he found a canary, I think, with its head stuck in the hole of the bird feeder. And Jim carefully freed the bird, which then did not appear to be breathing, et cetera. And so Jim, like, held the bird in his hand and administered like one finger chest compressions and also gave the bird mouth to mouth. There is some debate as to the specifics here,

the bird CPR logistics. Mary Jo, my mother-in-law, and Jim's wife of 55 years. Mary Jo contends that Jim would not have physically put his mouth on the bird's beak. Perhaps Jim put his mouth near the bird's mouth and blew a concentrated column of air at the bird. The point is, Jim does bird CPR and the bird seems to recover somewhat, and Jim leaves the bird there, and the next morning the bird's gone. But then later that year, the bird returns to visit Jim. Now they're friends. Now they have a permanent spiritual bond.

And he tells us this several months after it happened. That was Jim, who played Wordle with my kids every night over the phone these last few years when he couldn't leave the house as much. After Jim's funeral at the cemetery, they had a quick ceremony with a military salute. Jim had served during the Vietnam War, half a dozen guys with rifles. And my four-year-old daughter is not psyched about the guns, about how loud, the gunshots will be. So she won't go near the guns and therefore I can't go near the ceremony. Instead, my daughter and I were lurking way out on the sidewalk and my daughter makes me keep my hands clamped over her ears the whole time, including the 10 minutes or so before the dudes

even fire their rifles. And because my daughter is only four years old, she doesn't really understand that her grandpa, her jaja, that's the Polish name for grandpa. That's what we called him, jasha. She doesn't really get that he's gone. We keep gently telling her and she keeps blissfully not quite getting it because of course she doesn't and we don't push it. And now I'm standing there on the day of Jim's funeral watching this final ceremony unfold in the distance with my hands covering my daughter's ears. And I'm thinking about how weird it is that she doesn't quite get it, that we're here on this momentous and life-changing and terribly sad day, but she's too young to truly grasp the momentousness, the profound terrible sadness, the true lasting meaning of this day,

because she's not old enough yet. Time is a game only children play well. But it only occurs to me now that I'm still not old enough to truly grasp it either. Bridge. To live like you a guy, you got eternity, think about what you do with it. It's a Graybridge, live like you are dying, intensifies. It escalates in

this incredibly confident and unembarrassed manner. Tim McGrath struck me immediately as a singer who is not afraid to tell

you how he feels with no cleverness, no barrier, no artifice. And in my mid-20s, I am not used to singers like this, though it occurs to me

now that maybe the cleverness, the barrier, the artifice, that was all me. Back then, that's just the way I chose to hear,

most of what I heard. And this song was simply so unambiguous and so unashamed that I couldn't project any pointless, clever misdirection onto it. Jim would have fully vived with this song immediately. I should have played it for him. I should have made Jim a mixtape.

I actively regret not doing that. That's a weird, that's an almost superficial regret, I suppose. But it's simply that I love this. song and I love him. Key change. If you didn't already feel like you'd personally scaled the Rocky Mountains, the key change will carry you all the way up. So the day I wrote a lot of this, that night I was helping get my daughter to bed and we were reading Adora the Explorer book where everybody wishes on a star and the book asks, what do you wish for? And my daughter says,

I wish Zaja was here. So I may in fact be underestrian. So I may in fact be underestrian. her grasp of this situation, in addition to overestimating my grasp of this situation. Me too, kid. I feel like Jim would want me to include the part during the triumphant final chorus where Tim McGraw watches the eagle fly. My name is Rob Arvella. This is the 26th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. It was about Tim McGraw's live like.

you were dying. And if it's okay with you, I think I'd like to leave it at that. Do me a favor, though, and go tell someone you love about a song you love. That's our show for this week. I figured we would do without the interview, if that's all right. But thanks very much to our producers. As always, Olivia Creary, Christopher Sutton, and Justin Sales. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, yeah, let's all go listen to Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw. See you next week.