{"id":1310753,"date":"2019-05-27T23:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1806936"},"modified":"2019-05-27T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T05:00:08","slug":"25-years-ago-dont-take-the-girl-became-tim-mcgraws-first-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/25-years-ago-dont-take-the-girl-became-tim-mcgraws-first-no-1\/","title":{"rendered":"25 Years Ago, \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl\u201d Became Tim McGraw\u2019s First No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:ao:image:cmt.com:649676?width=1200&amp;height=675&amp;.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/morrise\/\" title=\"Posts by Edward Morris\" rel=\"author\">Edward Morris<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">43m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-vn6QdqxK3g?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-vn6QdqxK3g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>Maybe it was the mention of \u201cbuffalo briefs\u201d in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/artists\/tim-mcgraw\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Tim McGraw<\/a>\u2019s \u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d that elevated him from Hank-to-hunk and endowed him with the dramatic stature to pull off \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl,\u201d his first No. 1 single. Thursday (March 23) marks the 25th anniversary of this stellar achievement.<\/p>\n<p>McGraw\u2019s first three singles \u2014 all from his eponymous debut album \u2014 failed to excite much attention. The highest-charting one \u2014 \u201cWelcome to the Club\u201d \u2014 peaked at No. 37.<\/p>\n<p>But McGraw\u2019s flirty \u201cIndian Outlaw,\u201d from his second album, <em>Not a Moment Too Soon<\/em>, was a different animal altogether. Playing on his ingratiating smirk and motorcycle-riding masculinity, the music video presented him as a star.<\/p>\n<p>The song\u2019s lyrics, although ridiculed and reviled by many Native Americans, including Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller, didn\u2019t dim the song\u2019s popularity. It went on to reach No. 8 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s country singles chart and clearly played a large part in eventually boosting the sales of <em>Not a Moment Too Soon<\/em> to more than six million copies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d was a perfect foil for \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl,\u201d McGraw\u2019s follow-up single. Instead of presenting him as a Tonto lady killer, it spotlighted his softer side. The Larry Johnson\/Craig Martin tune was one of those popular songs in the 1990s that show a character evolving in three stages \u2014 generally toward something better or more mature. Here the evolution was from girl-hating little boy to girl-cherishing young man to scared-to-death new father. The music video was a literal visualizing of the lyrics and ends with the young man on his knees, praying for his wife\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl\u201d debuted on the charts April 2, 1994, and hit the top on May 23, where it stayed for two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>In the years since, McGraw has scored 26 more No. 1s, the most prominent of which was \u201cLive Like You Were Dying\u201d in 2004 \u2014 exactly a decade after his first triumph. This one held the summit for seven weeks and earned him a Grammy for best male vocal performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl\u201d continues as a concert favorite.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Edward Morris is a veteran of country music journalism. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a frequent contributor to CMT.com.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1806936\/25-years-ago-dont-take-the-girl-became-tim-mcgraws-first-no-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Edward Morris 43m ago Embedded from www.youtube.com. [embedded content] Maybe it was the mention of \u201cbuffalo briefs\u201d in Tim McGraw\u2019s \u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d that elevated him from Hank-to-hunk and endowed him with the dramatic stature to pull off \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl,\u201d his first No. 1 single. Thursday (March 23) marks the 25th anniversary of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1310753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 14:30:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}