He attended Northeast Louisiana University on a baseball scholarship and studied law. "I got into school, picked up a guitar, joined a fraternity, and started sucking down kegs," McGraw told Esquire in 2006. "Law went out the window when my grades came back."

Tim McGraw's career began the day his hero Keith Whitley died in 1989. It was then that McGraw dropped out of college and moved to Nashville, quickly finding success singing in bars and clubs.

The song tells the story of two young lovers dealing with difficult scenarios at three different stages in their lives. In each situation, the man does all he can to make sure that different people "don't take the girl."

Tug McGraw was a Major League Baseball relief pitcher most famous for striking out the Kansas City Royals' Willie Wilson in the 1980 World Series, thus bringing the Philadelphia Phillies their first world championship.

"Every Friday night there's a steady cloud of dust
That leads back to a field filled with pickup trucks
Got old Hank crankin' way up loud
Got coolers in the back, tailgates down
There's a big fire burning but don't be alarmed
It's just country boys and girls getting down on the farm"

In 1996, McGraw headlined the most successful country tour of the year, The Spontaneous Combustion Tour, with Faith Hill as his supporting act. Hill broke off her engagement to her former producer Scott Hendricks so that she and McGraw could start dating, and they married in October of that same year.

The music video for It's Your Love showcases Hill, who is very noticeably pregnant with the couple's first daughter, Gracie.

In 2002, McGraw bucked country music traditions by recording his seventh studio album Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors with his tour band The Dancehall Doctors. Unlike rock music, where it is commonplace for touring bands to provide the music on albums recorded by the artist they support, country albums are typically recorded with session musicians. McGraw chose to use his own touring band, in order to recognize their part in his success, and to capture some of the feel of a real band.

"I'm down here in Mexico sick as a dog
My head is poundin' in this border town fog
Down to my last dime and comin' apart at the seams
I'm messed up in Mexico
Livin' on refried dreams"

McGraw's first acting appearance came in a 1997 episode of The Jeff Foxworthy Show, in which he played Foxworthy's archenemy Lyle Rafferty.