“Grown Men Don’t Cry”
Tim McGraw
Written by Tom Douglas and Steve Seskin
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
June 8 – June 15, 2001
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
June 16, 2001
I remember reading a review in New Country magazine in the nineties that observed the following: “Nothing ages worse than yesterday’s sentimentality.”
The writer was evaluating The Essential Dottie West, which focused on West’s work for RCA and included the astonishingly cloying divorce songs “Mommy Can I Still Call Him Daddy” and “Six Weeks Every Summer (Christmas Every Other Year.)” Even as a teenager, I had enough self-awareness to wonder how I’d feel about “Don’t Take the Girl” and “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” when I was older.
Lord, can I tell the difference between those two records now, and I’ll throw “Grown Men Don’t Cry” in there for good measure. I don’t think this song is as cloying as the West hits or McGraw’s first big ballad hit, but the songwriters take a big swing and a miss with their poverty voyeurism, as a gorgeous metaphor for a hugging, struggling mother and son hits a harsh wall of judgment: “Like ice cream melting they embraced, years of bad decisions running down her face.”
It’s amazing to me that the songwriters who were able to write a genuinely heartbreaking second verse of an absentee father emotionally abandoning his son wrote something so disconnected from the realities of poverty in the first verse, but that might be an unavoidable side effect of having those who haven’t experienced poverty try to write about it. The songwriters would’ve been better served building an entire song around that graveside moment.
In recent years, new singer-songwriters like Jason Isbell, Ashley McBryde, and Kane Brown have all written much better songs that come from an authentic understanding of socioeconomic struggle. If Tim wants to go back to this well, he should check out those publishing catalogs.
“Grown Men Don’t Cry” gets a B-.
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Not a classic but a very good song. I would give this on a “B+”.
The first verse really kneecaps the next two, I agree. I think I also went with a B-.
As we enter the “Set This Circus Down” era, we move definitively past the era of “peak Tim McGraw” of the late 90s. “Grown Men Don’t Cry” isn’t a bad record but I knew the first time I heard this one that it wasn’t gonna have the intended emotional effect on me. Your quoted comment on “nothing aging worse than yesterday’s sentimentality” certainly has some merit, but more than being a matter of “aging badly” I think sentimentality is subjective. I can be moved to tears by a sad country song from 30 years ago that does nothing for my girlfriend while she can be moved to tears by an animated Disney movie that leaves me fully dry-eyed. Specific to Tim McGraw, I recall NBA player Jimmy Butler saying he became a country fan because “Don’t Take the Girl” hit him like a freight train when he heard it for the first time a generation after its chart run, so at least for him, yesterday’s sentimentality aged fine. Even for me, if a song moved me in the 80s or the 90s, I’m likely to revisit it frequently enough in ensuing years that it never felt particularly dated, but it’s reasonable to assume that makes me an outlier. I also suspect the impact of the sentimentality is more likely to feel dated to a new generation of listeners based on the musical arrangement than the lyrics.
Enough rambling about that. While I arrive at the same verdict as you about “Grown Men Don’t Cry”, I’m not exactly on the same page about the specifics. Its sentimental currency is limited by strict adherence to the formula that prevents any of the individual narratives to feel fully realized. As soon as I heard the chorus after the first verse, I knew the subsequent verses would involve the narrator grieving the loss of a parent and finding himself through his own children. It’s a tried and true formula that usually works to a limited degree as it does here, but fails to land any lyrical or musical hook to distinguish itself into my top tier(s) of sentimental songs. I’m also not a fan of when songs break their rhythm for a lyric that doesn’t fit, so the jumbled relaying of “it was just a dream, he was a slave to his job” is a hiccup to the song’s pacing that I have a hard time getting past.
As for the line about “years of bad decisions running down her face”, it does seem judgy and my ears perk up when I hear it for its disconnect from the compassionate intent. I usually don’t penalize the narrator or the songwriters very harshly for this sort of thing though, particularly if it doesn’t appear to come from a place of malice. It’s the narrator’s story to tell and I don’t feel as though I have to agree with every value he espouses to enjoy the song. But this feeds into a bigger debate of how to judge a song that one may otherwise like but which is beset by a single line or lyric that is troubling either because of lazy, tone-deaf, or mean-spirited songwriting. There have already been some instances of this in past reviews and there will be additional opportunities for this specific evaluation scenario in the near future with some of the upcoming #1s of 2001.
Grade: B-
Wow, we really disagree on Tim McGraw songs. I love this song. It’s AT LEAST an A- for me. Great song.
But Tim can’t miss for me with anything he released from Everywhere, A Place In The Sun, and Set This Circus Down.
Those three album eras are also my most favorites, and they are what I consider to be peak McGraw, both in terms of commercial success and quality of songs and production style. He’s never quite reached those same heights for me after that.
This is actually one of my favorite singles from the Set This Circus Down era, though I enjoy all of them, and it’s pretty much another solid album era in McGraw’s career for me.
Anyone who’s read a good number of my comments by now should get the feel that I tend to often like country songs that are on the sentimental side, and “Grown Men Don’t Cry” is no exception (but I do dislike “Don’t Take The Girl”). Like other commenters, I do have my issues with the first verse as well, which I’ll get to soon, but other than that, it pulls all the right emotional strings for me in other places. The one that personally gets me the most is when he’s tucking his young daughter in bed and she gets him with a simple “I love you, Dad.” I love that for that one moment, he forgets all his worries and troubles and recognizes one of the things that matters most in his life. He’s realizing that he’s getting to be the father in her life that he never had. I’ve just always had a soft spot for young kids helping to bring their parents “back down to earth” like that, even if its cliche. And yes, the second verse about his father is also very moving and sad at the same time, and for me it shines some extra light on why he feels bad for the struggling mother and son in the beginning. As for the first verse, the things I do like about it: After thinking all day that his life was hard, the narrator puts things in perspective after seeing the homeless lady and her kid and he does feel sympathy for them and wants to tell them that things will get better. But then that sweet moment is also ruined when he jumps to the conclusion that it was “years of bad decisions” that got her and her kid where they are now. It’s a bit too judgy for me, but it’s mostly redeemed with the chorus and the next two verses. For me, it’s clear that the narrator’s heart is in the right place, even though he could’ve done things better in the first verse.
I’ve also always loved the simple hook of “I don’t know why they say grown men don’t cry” after each verse. As a female, I’ve always had a deeper respect for males who are not afraid to show their softer side or just simply be their human selves. I quickly learned to despise the age old stereotype that all males are supposed to act tough and macho all the time in order to be considered “cool” or “real men.” When this song came out, a lot of that kind of attitude was all around me in high school, especially, and I often witnessed a lot of guys in my classes who were not exactly the macho types get harassed or bullied by other guys who always wanted to act tough and “cool” but were really just being jerks. Just from that experience alone, I always found the song’s general message that grown men DO cry and get emotional about things and that it’s okay for them to do so to be very refreshing. Heck, I actually find the song even more refreshing in today’s world where ultra masculinity stereotypes have pretty much dominated mainstream country and its audience since the rise of bro-country.
Besides the sentimental lyrics, I’ve always loved the beautiful arrangement and melody of “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” as well. I love the strings featured throughout, along with the gentle guitar and piano. It’s another example of how delightfully classy and smooth a lot of late 90s/early 2000s country sounded. I also enjoy McGraw’s fitting tender vocal performance, and I love how much more mature his vocals had gotten by this point compared to how he sounded on “Don’t Take The Girl.”
My biological dad, a man who was often not shy about being a “softy,” also really liked this song when it came out. The first few times we’d hear it in the car together, he would always tell me not to let anyone make me think that grown men don’t cry, because they do. In fact, I would actually witness him get teary eyed on two separate occasions when we heard another one of my dad’s then current favorites, Brad Paisley’s “Two People Fell In Love,” in the car together, which made me respect him even more, knowing that he was not afraid to let me see that side of him.
Overall, this was one of my many favorite songs that was on the radio during the Spring of 2001 when it was brand new. Similar to what MarkMinnesota has expressed before, I felt that there were so many good songs on the radio around that time. Like other songs from around that time, “Grown Men Don’t Cry” brings back memories I associate with that time period, such as seeing the Morgan Freeman and Monica Potter film, Along Came A Spider, my parents and I going to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and staying at the Best Western in Paradise for the first time, and us also visiting the Wilmington, Delaware area and going to the Concord Mall. Other favorites of mine during the Spring of 2001 include: “If You Can Do Anything Else” by George Strait, “When Somebody Loves You” by Alan Jackson, “Two People Fell In Love” by Brad Paisley, “Why They Call It Falling” by Lee Ann Womack, “Rose Bouquet” by Phil Vassar, “The Last Thing On My Mind” by Patty Loveless, “No Fear” by Terri Clark, “She Misses Him” by Tim Rushlow, “I Could Not Ask For More” by Sara Evans, “A Good Day To Run” by Darryl Worley, “I Would’ve Loved You Anyway” by Trisha Yearwood, “Downtime” by Jo Dee Messina, “There You Go Again” by Kenny Rogers, “The Hunger” by Steve Holy, “Sometimes” by Clay Davidson, “Move On” by The Warren Brothers, and “Standing Still” by The Clark Family Experience.
I can actually get behind this McGraw performance, a song about my mindfulness and gratitude.
The first verse speaks to the the privilege of wealth, of the luxury of having the option to escape even someone else’s discomfort and bad situation by simply driving away in a luxury vehicle because you have both the means to do so and somewhere else to actually go.
I do that everyday on Toronto while passing panhandlers and homeless people in the comfort of a 2025 F-150.
As awkward as the line in the first verse about “bad decisions” is, the emotional take-away from me is the juxtaposition of the choices and options that come with wealth as compared to the total absence of opportunity when you are poor. The narrator is wrestling with the notice of grace, or unmerited favour and how uncomfortable that can feel when you know you are never stuck in life.
While I understand the reasoning behind yesterday’s sentimentality aging poorly, a shocking lack of empathy in society and in mainstream country music makes me greatly appreciate songs that do embrace sentimentality. I agree that the first verse doesn’t fit as well, I do appreciate this song and consider it one of McGraw’s better songs.