Any long-lasting musical career has a turning point: the track that almost stays in the closet when the wrong folks say that it “doesn’t fit.” In the case of Tim McGraw, it happened with an “Indian Outlaw,” a song that the singer used as a hidden gun and the business was attempting to convince the trigger-man to put it away.
McGraw has described “Indian Outlaw,” as the most “controversial” in his career and the best instance of a gut-level bet on The Tim Ferriss Show. It did not please the label which is why he said that producer James Stroud was not convinced either. The only significant figure to attend the event was long-time partner Byron Gallimore, who still managed to refuse McGraw the liberty to record it in his 1993 self-titled debut. Instead, the executives said it was too controversial, it was a “bad song,” and it “wasn’t country music” and would not play on the radio.
McGraw did not begin a case in one of the boardrooms to have his track. It began at a Nashville lounge, at which songwriters Tommy and Max D. Barnes performed it in front of him. On the first night, McGraw listened to it and he began playing it as soon as he heard it, he said. He mastered it quickly and applied it in the old manner: night after night in the clubs and honky-tonks, allowing the audience to perform the functions of his veritable A&R department. This response was clear and repeatable so powerful that he claimed to have to play it two or three times a night, four times a night, so much were people fond of it. Such feedback loop would provide him leverage even though it could not subvert the power structure on album one.
McGraw was more aggressive when the second album came, Not a Moment Too Soon. He positioned the decision as a career coin toss, I felt like this would either work in a big way or it was going to ruin my career forever, and demanded that the song be released. This gamble became his first top 10 country hit and later went platinum but McGraw has claimed the greater success was sequencing: he feels the release of this song and the follow-up of “Don’t Take the Girl” kept him off the novelty list and gave the needed push to the rest of his music.
The song that made him breakout also had baggage. McGraw has admitted why “Indian Outlaw” caused a criticism, claiming that he knew it was a “stereotypical” and “a play on Native American stereotypes.” He explained his encounter with Native American leaders throughout the years, some of whom were helpful, others who were not and maintained his posture: Look, I know what your concerns are Should you have to follow me so as to bring up some attention and awareness, I suggest my song to you very well.
That tension, between what is sold, what is part of it, and what is over the line, keeps on dogging the definition games of country music. Arguments over who is being allowed to cross over hits and the power of streaming in this era, as well as who is invited to the largest stages of the format, have become the subject of argument among critics as to whether it is more a question of purity than norms and access to power within the machine.
That is not the place where the story by McGraw lands. Not only is it a flashback to a controversial single, but also a reminder that the “gatekeeping” process can manifest itself through the taste, branding, or “radio reality,” even when the audience already sings along. And by one song tried, in night-club, the audience were so noisier than the executives.
