What a beautiful sight to see this New Music Friday.
Tim McGraw is giving some TLC to an old track, revisiting the island-inspired heartbreak track “Paper Umbrellas.” McGraw first released “Paper Umbrellas” in 2023, and it appeared on his last studio album, Standing Room Only.
When looking at steaming numbers, the track was one of the more popular tunes on the record but did not have significant mainstream success. Regardless of how well a song performs, it does not mean it’s not a heater.
The double entendre title of the song depicts being heartbroken and wanting the dark clouds of her feelings to go away, but a “Paper Umbrella” will not weather that storm. But a “Paper Umbrella” on a drink is the perfect way to make the memory of this past man leave her mind. The song’s narrator finds this woman at the bar and offers to sit and drink away the heartbreak with her.
“It’s gonna take a lot of Pina Coladas
If you’re gonna drink him off your mind
I’ll sit here a little longer and get us something stronger
Something that’ll work in half the time
‘Cause when love don’t shine like you thought it would
Ain’t nothing quite like good tequila straight
To chase the clouds away
Yeah, girl, I’m here to tell ya paper umbrellas
Look good on top, but they won’t stop the rain…”
Today, McGraw released a reimagined version of the song with Texas country star Parker McCollum. McCollum’s addition was the perfect choice to breathe new life into this track. While the song’s composition remains the same, McCollum comes in during the second verse to support McGraw.
Given that McCollum is no stranger to writing a heartbreak ballad like “Things I Never Told You” and “Handle On You,” the subject matter of “Paper Umbrellas” is a perfect fit for the Gold Chain Cowboy. However, we often do not hear McCollum on a track that features the classic country sound of this tune, and it’s stellar.
McCollum recently said that he doesn’t feel like he’s a true country artist these days:
“I wanted to be a country singer for as long as I remember, and the longer I do this, the more I kind of realize I may just not be one. The more I try to write country songs and make country records, the further I get away from what really has always made me, me. I don’t know what you would call it, but you know all those names… if you took all of them and put them in a blender, I think it could come out as something similar.”
However, after hearing his feature on this song, I’d beg to differ. Although this is not a song that he penned, his vocals on this single are country to the core, and they embody the sound of the greats who have come before him.
McGraw adding McCollum to this track was the perfect way for it to gain some more popularity. It’s a stellar ditty, and they knocked this reimagination out of the park. This song is one to fire up if you’ve had the winter blues and need an island-inspired, sad country song to make you happy.
Turn this one all the way up.
