Live Like You Were Dying

Live Like You Were Dying
Studio album by Tim McGraw
Released	August 24, 2004 (2004-08-24)
Genre	Country
Length	64:00
Label	Curb
Producer	Byron Gallimore Tim McGraw Darran Smith
Tim McGraw chronology
Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors (2002) Live Like You Were Dying (2004) Reflected: Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (2006)
Singles from Live Like You Were Dying
"Live Like You Were Dying" Released: June 7, 2004 "Back When" Released: August 30, 2004 "Drugs or Jesus" Released: January 17, 2005 "Do You Want Fries with That" Released: May 23, 2005 "My Old Friend" Released: September 20, 2005

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(61/100) [1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[2]
Allmusic	[3]
Billboard	Positive [4]
Cross Rhythms	[5]
Entertainment Weekly	B [6]
Los Angeles Times	[1]
Mojo	[1]
The New York Times	Mixed [7]
Plugged In	(average) [8]
USA Today	[9]

Live Like You Were Dying is the eighth studio album by American country music artist Tim McGraw. It was released on August 24, 2004, by Curb Records and was recorded in a mountaintop studio in upstate New York. It entered the Billboard 200 chart at number one, with sales of 766,000 copies in its first week.^[10] The album was certified 4 x Platinum by the RIAA for shipping four million copies,^[11] and was nominated for two Grammies in 2005 for Best Country Vocal Performance Male and Best Country Album, winning for Best Country Vocal Performance. Five singles were released from the album, all were top 15 hits on the Hot Country Songs chart, two of which hit #1.

Content

The title track was the first single from the album. The song peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, held it for seven weeks, and peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[12] The song won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. The music video for the title track prominently featured McGraw's father, former baseball player Tug McGraw, who had died of brain cancer. This song was also the number one country song of 2004 according to Billboard Year-End.

The next single from this album is "Back When", which also reached #1 on Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The third single, "Drugs or Jesus" peaked at #14, making it the first McGraw single since 1993 not to reach the country Top 10 (not counting "Tiny Dancer"). "Do You Want Fries with That" was the fourth single and peaked at #5, and the fifth and final single, "My Old Friend", peaked at #6.

"How Bad Do You Want It" was featured as the theme song to CMT's Trick My Truck. "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was previously recorded by Travis Tritt on his 2002 album Strong Enough.

Track listing

Personnel

Tim McGraw & The Dance Hall Doctors

• Dean Brown – fiddle, mandolin
• David Dunkley – percussion
• Denny Hemingson – electric guitar, steel guitar, baritone guitar, slide guitar, Melobar, Dobro
• John Marcus – bass guitar
• Billy Mason – drums
• Tim McGraw – lead vocals
• Jeff McMahon – Wurlitzer electric piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3 organ, piano
• Bob Minner – acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin
• Darran Smith – acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Background vocals

• Robert Bailey – track 6
• Greg Barnhill – tracks 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 16
• Kim Carnes – tracks 4, 6
• Rodney Crowell – track 9
• Kim Fleming – track 6
• Vicki Hampton – track 6
• Wes Hightower – tracks 10, 15, 16
• Faith Hill – track 12
• Steve McEwan – track 2
• Gene Miller – tracks 13, 16
• Chris Rodriguez – track 13
• Russell Terrell – tracks 1, 3, 4, 8, 14
• Brett Warren – track 12

Strings on tracks 5, 6, 11, 16

• Charlie Bisharat, Darius Campo, Susan Chatman, Mario deLeon, Berj Garabedian, Armen Garabedian, Natalie Leggett, Sara Parkins – violins
• Evan Wilson, Bob Becker - violas
• Larry Corbett, Suzie Katayama – cellos
• David Campbell – string arrangements
• Steve Churchyard – string engineer
• Suzie Katayama – string contractor
• Greg Lawrence – other string engineer

Chart positions

Live Like You Were Dying debuted on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at # 1, his third #1 album, and on the Top Country Albums number-one album, his seventh album at #1.

References

External links

• Live Like You Were Dying at Metacritic