Tim McGraw was just let out of his contract from Curb Records but that doesn’t mean that Curb Records won’t try to sabotage his career by releasing singles from his unreleased Emotional Traffic album. “Better Than I Used To Be” is a song first heard from Sammy Kershaw and it’s easy to see why the song was chosen by McGraw too. It’s a strong story song from a mature singer/songwriter.

Written by Ashley Gorley and Brian Simpson, the song is one of McGraw’s most country song to date with strong lyrical imagery and one of Tim’s best vocal performances in years. Take a look at some of the lyrics here from the chorus:

“I ain’t no angel / Still got a few more dances with the devil / I’m cleaning up my act little by little / I’m getting there / I can finally stand the man in the mirror I see / I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get / But I’m better than I used to be,”

And lyrics from the second verse:

“I pinned a lot of demons to the ground / Got a few old habits left / But there’s still water I might need you to help me get / Standing in the rain so long / Has left me with a little rust / It put some faith in me that some day you’ll see there’s a diamond under all this dust,”

It’s a great song and while tim sings the ‘snot’ out of it, it’s hard to not picture Sammy Kershaw’s own 2010 single release of the same song and given Kershaw’s own public issues with his own inner demons and problems, if this song was gonna be a hit for anyone, I’d just as soon it be a hit for Sammy.

That being said, a great song deserves to be heard and this, my friends, is a GREAT song.

Take a listen to a live performance of the song from Tim Here.

Listen to Sammy Kershaw’s version here