by Alison Bonaguro
20h ago
First there was the tease.
It’s been a rough year for all of us, full of tragedy and loss. But a New Year is dawning, and with it hope …may we enter it #UNDIVIDED!! @THubbmusic pic.twitter.com/R6LWS5PGp5
— Tim McGraw (@TheTimMcGraw) December 31, 2020
Then another tease.
Can’t wait to show you what @THubbmusic and I have been workin on #undivided pic.twitter.com/A3olAC3WYC
— Tim McGraw (@TheTimMcGraw) January 3, 2021
Then the reveal.
Tyler sent me this song a few months ago and from the first time I heard it….I knew it was one I wanted to be singing for a long time. We got together in the studio last month and created something real special. Hope y’all agree when you hear it!! #UNDIVIDED coming Jan. 13th. pic.twitter.com/ooR3abi9Hw
— Tim McGraw (@TheTimMcGraw) January 5, 2021
And now, the collaboration of all collaborations is just about here. Tim McGraw began sharing bits and pieces of the news of his duet with Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard on New Year’s Eve, saying, “It’s been a rough year for all of us, full of tragedy and loss. But a New Year is dawning, and with it hope …may we enter it #UNDIVIDED!!” The song will be released on Wednesday (Jan. 13) and will be on the deluxe version of McGraw’s Here On Earth album, due out later this spring.
Hubbard wrote the song of unity with Chris Loocke when he was quarantining on his bus late last year after a positive Covid-19 test. And then it was just a matter of getting McGraw on board. “I knew immediately when I finished it, I had to text it to Tim. He has a way of communicating with the world that is unique in music,” Hubbard said of the collaboration. “For him to want to perform with me was an amazing feeling. The song is about coming together, and that’s exactly what we did.” (Read more about Hubbard’s solo side hustle here.)
McGraw connected with the message the song was sending right away. “Music gives us hope and brings us together in a way nothing else can. This doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do. Quite the opposite,” McGraw said. “I loved the positivity of this song and that it called me to check myself and to remember that love is bigger. It’s why I knew this song had to be my next single with Tyler as soon as he sent it to me.”
With lyrics like I think it’s time to come together/You and I can make a change/Maybe we can make a difference/Make the world a better place/Look around and love somebody/We’ve been hateful long enough/Let the good Lord reunite us/‘Til this country that we love’s undivided, the timing could not be better.
This is the song the world desperately needs right now.
Alison makes her living loving country music. She’s based in Chicago, but she’s always leaving her heart in Nashville.