Tim McGraw teamed up with famed light painter Patrick Rochon for the lyric video of McGraw’s latest single, “Neon Church.” The tune is from an upcoming, still-untitled new album.
In the video, different people can be seen spelling out key words from each line in varying colors, in front of several backdrops, including a whiskey barrel, a brick wall and a fully stocked bar.
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“We wanted to give the fans something really special with this lyric video, and we were blown away with Patrick’s work,” McGraw explained of the lyric video, via ABC News Radio. “He’s an artist who uses light as paint and darkness as a canvas. That couldn’t be more perfect for ‘Neon Church.’”
McGraw initially alarmed fans when he, a recovered alcoholic, posted a mysterious tweet, saying, “I need Jesus or I need whiskey.”
Thankfully, the tweet was just a line in the song, which says, “I need Jesus or I need whiskey / Whatever works best to get me through /Gettin’ over you / A little Friday night hallelujah / A congregation of backsliders just like me / Yeah, what I need / Is a neon church with a jukebox choir / Full of honky tonk angels.”
McGraw didn’t write “Neon Church,” which instead was written by Ross Ellis, Ben Goldsmith and Ben Stennis, but he knew the first time he heard it that the song was perfect for him.
“To me, it had a little bit of dirt on it,” McGraw said on the Ty, Kelly and Chuck Show. “I think when you hear an opening line like ‘I need Jesus or I need whiskey,’ that’s one of the great opening lines of all times of a country song, and I fell in love with that. And then every lyric that comes after that is so well-placed. Nothing’s out of place with that lyric. We wanted to go in and cut a record that had a little bit of a Journey/Prince vibe that’s leading more modern at the same time. So we wanted these really big Prince-sounding guitars on it.”
Not only was McGraw a fan of the song, but his wife, Faith Hill, also loved it from the first listen.
“She’s got a lot of favorites on the record we are working on, but this is one that she really gravitated to,” McGraw told Taste of Country. “She didn’t have any complaints with this being the first single. She loves the guitars on it and loves the lyric.”
Download “Neon Church” on iTunes.
Photo Credit: Getty images/Kevin Winter
