Tim McGraw is looking back at the most “controversial” song of his career.
During a recent interview on “The Tim Ferriss Show,” the 58-year-old country singer shared which song he had to fight to include on one of his albums, and why it was such a big risk.
“‘Indian Outlaw’ — because I had that song for my first album and nobody liked it,” he explained when asked for an example of a song of his he thought was “lightning in a bottle.” “The label didn’t like it. [Producer] James Stroud didn’t like it. Byron [Gallimore, his longtime producer and collaborator] liked it, but I couldn’t talk James into letting me record it and I couldn’t talk the label into it.”
According to the musician, the label told him “it was too controversial, and it was a bad song,” going as far as telling McGraw “it wasn’t country music” and would not get played on the radio.
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He recalled the first night he heard the song, in the Hall of Fame Lounge and Hotel in Nashville, when he bumped into songwriters Tommy and Max D. Barnes, who played the song for him live.
“I heard it that first night and I started playing it immediately,” McGraw said. “Learned it and started playing it in all the clubs around town, the honky-tonks around town, and when we would travel and play clubs all over the country, I was playing that song, and we’d end up having to play it two or three times a night, four times a night, because people loved it so much.”
Due to his love of the song and the praise it was receiving at his shows, McGraw pleaded with his record label to include it on his debut album, but because he “didn’t have any say-so on the first album,” it was left off.
When it came time to cut his second album, “Not a Moment Too Soon,” the singer insisted it be included, noting, “I felt like this is either going to work in a huge way or it’s going to ruin my career forever.”
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“Luckily, it worked,” McGraw added. “And I think that what kept me from being just sort of a novelty act with this sort of funky, weird song that made some noise was being able to come right behind it with ‘Don’t Take the Girl.’ I’ll forever believe that the combination of those two songs is what set my career in motion and gave me momentum that I probably couldn’t have gotten any other way.”
The song went on to become McGraw’s first top 10 country hit and went platinum.
McGraw touched on the controversy of “Indian Outlaw,” explaining, “I understood why it was controversial, because it was stereotypical, and it was sort of a play on Native American stereotypes. And there was a lot of controversy around it, and I understood the controversy and I wasn’t upset about the controversy.”
He added, “In fact, I met with several Native American leaders. Some liked the song, some didn’t like the song. And my answer was, ‘Look, I understand what your concerns are. The song’s not meant to be that way, I understand your concerns. My opinion, if you need to go after me in order to raise attention and awareness, by all means, use my song for that. If you like it or don’t like it, if you can make something good happen from it, then by all means, I’m not going to be offended.'”
The singer said that when he plays at Native American casinos, he offers to take the song out of his set, but “99 percent of the time, ‘That’s why we hired you, is to sing that song.’ So they love it. So it’s been really good to me.”
In October 2025, the singer opened up about a rough patch in his career following a series of injuries, which left him wondering if he would ever perform again, adding he nearly quit his career.
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“I’ve had four back surgeries and double knee replacements, just in the last couple of years,” he told the crowd at his concert in Highland, California at the time.
He later added, “And this spring, before I had my final back surgery, things were getting really bad, so I was seriously contemplating and figuring out how to walk away. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t think it was going to get better.”
McGraw later shared that he has since gotten better and that while he was recovering he wrote the song, “King Rodeo,” which explores themes of aging and the struggles that come with it.
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Lyrics of the song include: “Hey, King Rodeo, You’re lookin’ lonely / Like you’ve lost your one and only / Adoring crowds are not around you / Whispers and shadows, they surround you.”
