How to Pick Great Songs - Tim McGraw Style

When you take a look at the last 20+ years of Tim McGraw's music, you'll see some of the biggest and brightest names in Nashville have been writing his songs. Names like Brad and Brett Warren, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Craig Wiseman and Phil Vassar. While one might think that's because he only teams up with the best, that's actually not his method at all. In fact, according to a radio interview he recently did, he doesn't even know who the songwriter is most of the time when he's listening to cuts for possible inclusion.

He said, "Unless your friends with them, I never really pay attention to who wrote a song, because I think you could be influenced by that when you hear a demo. And I’ll write too, but mine rarely make it onto the record because it’s all about the song to me. And it’s not about whether I wrote it or not. So I’d rarely look at who wrote a song because I don’t want to be influenced."

His methods are comparible to the blind auditions on the hit show The Voice. On the show, the judges just hear the song and get the audience reaction. How someone looks doesn't come into play. For Tim, by just listening to the song keeps it focused on the song itself - nothing more, nothing less.

While it may be different, it seems to work wonders for him (as his number of hits proves).