Tim McGraw, you really want to make country music lovers cry, don’t you?
On Saturday, McGraw tossed it back to that time when he honored Glen Campbell at the 2015 Academy Awards.
Tim McGraw posted “Happy Oscars weekend!! I’ll never forget this performance. Glen Campbell’s legacy will live on forever!” And McGraw then tagged the Academy Awards.
Tim McGraw Stepped In To Sing Glen Campbell’s Oscar-nominated Song
Tim McGraw was an Academy Awards performer because Glen Campbell could no longer perform. Doctors diagnosed Campbell’s Alzheimer’s in late 2010. The last song he helped write was “I’m Not Going to Miss You.” It also was the last song he ever recorded. And that song was part of a 2014 documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll be Me. But by the time of the documentary’s release, Campbell already needed long-term care at an Alzheimer’s memory facility.
Julian Raymond was a co-writer of the song. Raymond would jot down notes as he talked to Campbell.
“It’s heartbreaking to hear,” Glen Campbell’s wife Kim Woollen told the Arizona Republic in 2015. “On the other side, he’s saying, ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m gonna be OK. You’re the one who’s gonna have a hard time.’ And it’s true because he doesn’t know the pain we’re going through. It is heartbreaking every single day. Sometimes, I’m really depressed.”
The song won a Grammy and it also earned a nomination for best original song. It didn’t win the Oscar. Glory, the song by Common and John Legend, earned the Academy Award that night. Still, Tim McGraw filling in for Glen Campbell was one of the highlights of the show. It reminded music lovers of what they missed so much about Campbell. And movie lovers also had a reason to love Campbell. Forty-five years before, Campbell earned his first Oscar nomination with the theme song from True Grit.
Tim McGraw gave a terrific job standing in for Campbell. Glen’s wife and daughter were in the audience that night. McGraw, with his wife, Faith Hill, walked the red carpet in pre-Oscar ceremonies.
So imagine you’re Tim McGraw having to sing these words:
I’m still here, but yet I’m gone. I don’t play guitar or sing my songs. They never defined who I am, the man that loves you ’til the end.
“You’re the last person I will love, you’re the last face I will recall. And best of all, I’m not gonna miss you, not gonna miss you, I’m never gonna hold you like I did, or say I love you to the kids. You’re never gonna see it in my eyes. It’s not gonna hurt me when you cry.
Tim McGraw only tweeted a short clip of his performance. This is the rest of it. Have the tissues ready.
