Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s ‘Meanwhile, Back at Mama’s’ Wasn’t Written as a Duet

Tim McGraw scored another hit with "Meanwhile, Back at Mama's," his duet with with his wife Faith Hill, which appears on his Sundown Heaven Town album. But while the song earned the pair an ACM Awards nomination for Vocal Event of the Year, one of the song's writers, Jaren Johnston, says that it was never intended to be a duet.

“[We] just wrote a folky thing,” Johnston, who is a member of the Cadillac Three, tells Radio.com of the tune, which he wrote with Tom Douglas and Jeffrey Steele.

“[Big Machine Label Group President] Scott Borchetta said, ‘You know it’s going to be a duet, right?’" Johnston recalls. "And I was like, ‘Who are they going to get?’ I had no idea. He’s like, ‘Faith’s going to sing on it.’ I was like, ‘Score! Touchdown!'”

McGraw knew right away that the song, with lines like "Meanwhile, back at Mama's / The porch light's on, come on in if you wanna / Supper's on the stove, and beer's in the fridge / Red sun sinkin' out low on the ridge," was the perfect song to record with his wife.

“I got home, I walked into the house, and I said, ‘Faith, you’ve got to hear this song,'" McGraw says. "So I played her the song, and when it got to the end and it said, ‘Me and you back at Mama’s,’ a flood of tears just came down from her eyes.

“I said, ‘Not only am I going to cut, but you’re going to sing it with me,'" he adds. "And that’s how it was born, right there.”

The two broadcast their love story in the song's video, which shows them both performing the tune live and enjoying time on their secluded farm, located just outside of Nashville.

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