Hear Tim McGraw Cover the Cars With Dreamlike ‘Drive’

Tim McGraw looks to Eighties pop radio with his new release, a yearning cover of the Cars’ 1984 hit “Drive.” It’s McGraw’s latest music to appear since he issued “Thought About You” late in 2018.

McGraw has occasionally been known to put his own spin on a popular song, including Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and Ryan Adams’ “When the Stars Go Blue,” the latter of which reached Number Four in 2006. In this case, he plays it pretty straight, retaining the cascading, dreamlike atmosphere of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Cars’ original, beefing up the drums a little bit and adding some lovely slide guitar but not shying away from synth sounds. It also sits comfortably in McGraw’s vocal range — preventing him from trying to imitate Benjamin Orr’s performance — and it’s clear he’s had some time to perfect it.

“Drive was one we covered in bars back in the day and it still reminds me of high school,” wrote McGraw on Twitter, adding “@thecarsband made such killer sounding records!”

I love finding cover songs for my albums. we’ve done Suspicions, Tiny Dancer, Stars Go Blue – for the next album, I really wanted to find something cool & unique

Drive was one we covered in bars back in the day and it still reminds me of high school.  https://t.co/A4qlcaF9In pic.twitter.com/cVZdrT2xxA

— Tim McGraw (@TheTimMcGraw) August 29, 2019

McGraw’s “Thought About You,” released as a single earlier in 2019, is currently at Number 21 on Mediabase’s country airplay chart. McGraw has a handful of festival dates coming up, including the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam in Panama City, Florida, on August 30th, and the iHeartRadio Music Festival happening September 20th in Las Vegas, before he departs to play a string of Australian dates in October.