Parker McCollum’s Mom Should Probably Skip This New Song on ‘Never Enough’
Parker McCollum says his mom still probably doesn't know what he kept hidden in his truck all those years.
Well, she didn't know, until now.
Talking to Taste of Country about "Things I Didn't Tell You" — a new song from his just-released Never Enough album — McCollum admits that even though he didn't write it, the ballad tells his story.
"I had a Playboy stashed in a Johnny Cash LP sleeve in my room / That's just a few / Things I never told you," he sings to close the first chorus.
"My brother really did have a Playboy stashed in his room and I'd go in there and look at it when I was little," McCollum reveals, smiling at the memory during a conversation with Taste of Country Nights' Evan Paul.
"There's a line that says, 'I had a well-hid can of Skoal in the counsel in my Chevy ...'"
"If you caught wind of half my sins, you'd have whipped my ass through and through / Back then if you knew / Things I never told you."
"I actually had a secret compartment in my Chevy where I would hide my snuff and my mom never found it," he adds.
Taylor Phillips, Lynn Hutton and Monty Criswell wrote "Things I Never Told You." It's the only song on Never Enough that McCollum didn't help write, but as soon as he heard it, he knew. It's not the only song that feels like a confession, however.
A piano ballad called "Have Your Heart Again" stands out as awfully heartbreaking for a man still in the honeymoon phase of a marriage. He says wife Hallie Ray actually loves that song — she's a sucker for a sad song.
"It's not like we're going through hard times," the Texan says, dismissing any notion that she might be jealous of him singing about an ex. The truth about "Have Your Heart Again" is he wrote it for his previous album, but it just didn't make the cut. It fits on Never Enough.
McCollum spent this week in his home state ahead of the 2023 ACM Awards. On Tuesday night (May 9) he hosted a splendid album release party, so surely if mom didn't know all his secrets yet, she found out then, right?
"She probably knew a lot more than I thought," McCollum concedes.
Moms always do.