Watch Tim McGraw, Faith Hill’s Powerful New ‘Break First’ on ‘Fallon’
On the eve of releasing their first-ever collaborative album The Rest of Our Life, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were guests on Thursday’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, pulling triple duty as they performed a cut from the new record, chatted with the host and played a game with Fallon and house band the Roots. Their performance of “Break First” introduced the slow-building power ballad that tells the story of an encounter in a bar between a pair of strong-willed people dealing with their troubled relationship and wondering to themselves which of them will be the first to ease the tension and break the stalemate that’s keeping them apart.
Also keeping them on opposite sides for a while longer was a round of a game called “Search Party,” as McGraw was joined on his team by the Roots’ Questlove and Tariq Trotter, while Hill’s team consisted of Fallon and the band’s James Poyser. The object: to fill in the last words of popular Google search terms, such as “Why do country singers always sing about _______.” McGraw’s response, which he spelled out like the classic country song was “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” while Hill’s list-topping answer was “Love.” Watch the couple face off in the clip below.
During their conversation with Fallon, McGraw talked about his early touring days as a 19-year-old (he’s now 50), with a Ford van and a U-Haul trailer, noting that some of his band members at that time remain with him to this day. They also recalled their first meeting, at 1994’s Country Radio Seminar. “I remember very vividly,” McGraw explained, saying, “It was the New Faces show and we were backstage. We all took a picture, a lot of new artists. Clay Walker was in there. That was the first time I met Faith. I had a mullet… ” “That was so sexy,” Hill jokingly interjected, “That was hot. That was hot.”
McGraw also recalled meeting a young man his daughter Gracie was going to date, greeting him at the front door wearing a chef’s apron covered in meat and blood and wielding a knife. See the full interview below.
Also this week, the couple gave media a sneak peek of “Tim McGraw and Faith Hill: Mississippi Woman, Louisana Man,” their new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which opens to the public today. Featuring stage wear and numerous awards, as well as the mirror from McGraw’s dressing room, which he used in his proposal to Hill during the 1996 Spontaneous Combustion Tour, the exhibit will remain through