7500 OBO

Album: Here on Earth (2020)
Charted: 66
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Songfacts®:

  • At first, this appears to be a typical "I love my truck" song as Tim McGraw bigs up his dark blue 2006 Ford F-150 with a brand-new transmission, leather seats and sunroof. Soon it becomes clear he is trying to sell his beloved vehicle because of the memories it holds.

    I wish I didn't have to get rid of it
    But every time I turn that key, I see her


    Every time McGraw gets into his pickup truck, he's haunted by the remembrances of his lost love. He's ready to let it go for $7500 OBO (or best offer).
  • Nathan Spicer (Jake Owen's "Senorita," Ryan Hurd's "To a T," "Every Other Memory") Jenn Schott (Mickey Guyton's "Better Than You Left Me," Tim McGraw's "Two Lanes of Freedom") and Matt McGinn (Kane Brown's "What Ifs," "Heaven," "Cool Again") wrote "7500 OBO." It's clear they aimed the song at McGraw as they namecheck three of his hits in the song's chorus.

    Shotgun Ridin'' down a two-lane road
    Just drivin' around with no place to go, ah
    Singin' along to "Where The Green Grass Grows"
  • McGraw told Apple Music when he listened to the demo he noticed it sampled his "Where the Green Grass Grows" fiddle and also included references to some of his tracks. "It took me a minute to get my head around that, saying, 'Should I sing this song or should someone else sing this song?' he said. "But at the end of the day, it was just a really good song."

    One of McGraw's concerns was whether he could "handle that kind of vocal cadence." But when he came to lay it down, "oddly enough, it was one of the easiest vocals I did on the whole record."
  • McGraw's 2013 single "Highway Don't Care" has a similar theme of using a vehicle to tell a story of love lost. In that instance, he sings of a girlfriend driving home in tears after their relationship went wrong. Though the road she is traveling on is indifferent to her crying, he still cares for her.

    The country star's 2014 "Shotgun Rider" track is the complete opposite; McGraw doesn't want anyone else by his side in the car besides his lover.
  • McGraw originally slated this to be the second single from Here On Earth until Tyler Hubbard sent him "Undivided." He eventually released it as the album's third single on August 2, 2021.
  • Alexa and Stephen Kinigopoulos directed the video, Tim McGraw's first since his 2018 visual for "Neon Church." It tells a love story from the perspective of a truck's backseat and stars McGraw's daughter, Audrey, in her acting debut.
  • Nathan Spicer already had the idea for the song when he arrived at the songwriting session with Jenn Schott and Matt McGinn on October 1, 2018. His co-writers liked the concept, but his original title of "F-150" got rerouted.

    "Matt was turning his wheels on how to make that work," said Spicer to Billboard. "The idea of it all being like a Craigslist ad was where Matt landed on how to make my idea cool."
  • Spicer produced the demo, which was sung by McGinn. When it was nearly done, Spicer played "Where the Green Grass Grows" to see if it prompted any additional creative ideas.

    "I realized that the fiddle part that opens the track is in the same key and like two beats per minutes away," he said. "So I just threw that fiddle sample into the demo, just to play around and hopefully turn some heads."

Comments: 1

  • Robin Baker from Greeley CoI'm confused. If he left years earlier in the video, then who is the woman there at the end of the video supposed to be?
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