Tim McGraw turns emotion into music

Country star Tim McGraw was a "blubbering" mess when he tried to record music after dropping his daughter off at college.

The singer has three daughters with his wife Faith Hill: Gracie, 18, Maggie, 17, and 13-year-old Audrey. His eldest has just taken a huge step in her life and it inspired the musician to write track Humble and Kind, taken from his 2015 album Damn Country Music, about passing advice on to his kids.

"It was at the right time in my life," he smiled to Billboard magazine. "We had just dropped Gracie off at college, and I went into the studio and I kept blubbering. I couldn't get through the song - I'd fall apart. I had to leave to go to a volleyball game, and after about five miles I turned around and cried all the way back to the studio, because I wanted to get it out of my system. It's such a great message."

But Gracie isn't just the inspiration for her dad's song writing - she also appears on track Here Tonight with him. At first he wasn't sure she'd agree to it, but now he's glad he took the plunge.

"When I first recorded the song, I had a suspicion that her voice would be great on it," he said. "But I was afraid she would think it was uncool to sing with her dad. It took a lot for me to get up the nerve to ask her. One day we were in the kitchen and I told her, 'I'll email you this song,' because I didn't want to play it in front of her and have her turn me down. I asked her to sing on it, and I was shocked she said she would. And she nailed it."