"If You're Reading This" is a song performed by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

artist

Tim McGraw Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, five for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number one on ...

. It was first performed at the Academy of Country Music (ACM) awards, which were held in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

and aired May 15, 2007 on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. Shortly after McGraw's live performance, several radio stations began playing a telecast of the song, boosting it to a debut at No. 35 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

charts from unsolicited airplay. A remixed version of the live recording was later released to radio as a single, overlapping with McGraw's then-current single, " I Need You", a duet with his wife

Faith Hill Audrey Faith McGraw (; born September 21, 1967), known professionally as Faith Hill, is an American Country music, country singer. She is one of the most successful country music artists of all time, having sold almost 50 million albums worldwide ...

. "If You're Reading This" eventually peaked at No. 3 on the ''Billboard'' country charts in October 2007, becoming McGraw's forty-second Top Ten country hit overall. The song also peaked at No. 41 on the '' ''Billboard'' Hot 100''.

About the song

"If You're Reading This" is a tribute to the families of soldiers who have died. Its lyrics take the form of a letter written from a soldier to his family — a letter that is intended to be sent only if the soldier dies ("If you're reading this / I'm already home"). McGraw co-wrote the song, with Brad and Brett Warren of country duo

The Warren Brothers The Warren Brothers are an American country music duo composed of brothers Brett Warren (lead vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica, mandolin, piano) and Brad Warren (background vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar). The duo has released three ...

, approximately three weeks before the ACM awards aired. The three were inspired by reading a magazine article on war casualties. When McGraw performed the song at the ACM telecast, one hundred relatives of soldiers joined him onstage, under a banner that read "Families of Fallen Heroes". After performing the song, he received a standing ovation.

Chart performance

Despite the lack of a studio recording, the song received airplay on country radio after several stations began playing the CBS telecast of McGraw's live performance. As a result, it entered ''

chart at number 35. Scott Siman, McGraw's manager, had been working with both the label (

Curb Records Curb Records (also known as Asylum-Curb and formerly known as MCG Curb) is an American record label started by Mike Curb, originally as Sidewalk Records in 1963. From 1969 to 1973, Curb merged with MGM Records where Curb served as President of M ...

) and radio stations to "address the fact that we don't have a studio recorded version of this song". A remixed version (with most of the audience noise removed, except for applause at the end) was released to radio in June 2007, while McGraw's then-current single "I Need You" (a Faith Hill duet) was also climbing the charts. This remix was added to later presses of his then current album ''

Let It Go "Let It Go" is a song from Disney's 2013 computer-animated feature film '' Frozen'', whose music and lyrics were composed by husband-and-wife songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. The song was performed in its original show ...

'', and Curb began promoting the song as a single in place of "I Need You". "If You're Reading This" is the second song in McGraw's career that has charted due to a live performance. In 2001, "unknown fans" taped McGraw's performance of the song "Things Change" during the CMA awards, and posted the recording to

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

; as a result, several stations downloaded and played the live telecast of that song.

Chart positions

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2007 singles 2007 songs Tim McGraw songs Songs written by Tim McGraw Songs written by the Warren Brothers Song recordings produced by Byron Gallimore Song recordings produced by Tim McGraw Curb Records singles Country ballads