Tim sure is sorry he gave his email address to so many people at his high school reunion…
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[6.17]
Alfred Soto: Or: Tim’s “Famous in a Small Town.” The tact and generosity that have been McGraw’s gift for years extends to the kind of chugging arrangement which best suits him and lyrics that nod towards hanging out in Pizza Hut parking lots and Cub Scout leaders who said “you” can go to hell. Actually, so sure is McGraw’s touch that when he flashes anger in the latter verse it doesn’t interrupt the rhythm. I can imagine this song written for and sung to one man from another man.
[8]
Anthony Easton: I really missed Tim McGraw’s voice, and this has potential — how it grows so large, so political, so much against the general idea of country as a collection of apolitical small pleasures, into the problems of fame. Which, you know, is a kind of dead topic (see Lacey Dalton’s “God Bless the Boys,” or Kenny’s “Big Star”) but the moving of the erotic focus from the singular to the collective posits one solution to the above scope problem It’s not a good song, but McGraw sells it as more sophisticated than it is.
[6]
Brad Shoup: McGraw just ethered small-town America, y’all. Straight murked it. “The One That Got Away” is a lonesome soft-rock ballad with empathy reserved for our singing heroine only. Chatter seeps up in the mix: it could be wiretaps, overheard conversation or a radio announcer. It’s impossible to make words out, and it suits the paranoiac mood perfectly. Timmy don’t really have the pipes but he’s able to traverse the prairie-flat track, salting the earth with bitter couplets about middle-American jealousy. It’s not a perfect song, but it’s got mad instant-replay value, and we can spin the narrative around Taylor Swift or Curb Records or whomever else.
[8]
John Seroff: Female pronouns notwithstanding, McGraw’s wistful look back at Suburbia can’t help but sound autobiographical and, by extension, a little too Swiftian for him to really keep under reins. Sharp performance saves the song from irritating but can’t elevate it past mediocrity. “Got Away” may be accessible (the kids in my hometown hung out in the Circle K parking lot, but close enough) but it’s also trite.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: If the lyrics don’t quite cry in the lonely dark, they don’t have to; the crack and sigh in McGraw’s voice convey regret better than any line — any, that is, save the stunningly empathetic “you tucked your scars up under your dress like an American girl,” probably slated already for a thousand yearbooks.
[7]
Michaela Drapes: You’d think a song about getting out of your two-bit small town would be a little more cheerful and inspirational, perhaps.
[3]