The song was written by Lori McKenna. In an interview with CMT published in July 2016, McKenna revealed the song was written for her husband and their five kids and is her list of all the things she wanted to make sure she'd told them. McGraw and frequent collaborator Byron Gallimore co-produced the song.
Lori McKenna version
On July 8, 2016, Lori McKenna released her rendition of "Humble and Kind" as a single from her album, The Bird and the Rifle, released on July 29, 2016.
Music video
McGraw released the video to the song on his Facebook page on January 21, 2016. At the time of the video release, the song was expected to be released as the second single from the album in early February. The video was the result of a brainstorm McGraw had while running on a treadmill and seeing a 30-second trailer for Oprah Winfrey's Belief series. After taking some initiative, McGraw got Winfrey to avail footage for the video. The video, which was directed by Wes Edwards, featured scenes from around the world from Winfrey's fall 2015 documentary series. The video won the top honor, "Video of the Year", at the 2016 CMT Music Awards.
Promotion
The song and video of "Humble and Kind" has its own website intended to gather related stories about acts of kindness that have been shared with the hashtag #stayhumbleandkind. The day after the music video was released, Winfrey tweeted her approval of the video, saying "TIM, I love this song. Every word feels true." McGraw performed the song on the April 3, 2016 ACM Awards.
Book
A bound edition of "Humble and Kind" was released on May 17, 2016, in conjunction with graduation season by Hachette Books. In addition to the lyrics and illustrations, the book edition features an introduction by McGraw and an epilogue by McKenna. McGraw pledged his book proceeds to the Neighbor's Keeper Fund of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
Critical response
Chris Parton of Country Weekly described "Humble and Kind"'s video as "the touching, lump-in-your-throat" kind. Stephen L. Betts of Rolling Stone described the video as one that takes "universal scenes of faith and life and combines them with an understated performance from McGraw, captured by a 360-degree turntable lighting rig". According to Christina Vinson of Townsquare Media's blog site, The Boot, the video, which presents a song from the perspective of "a parent sending their child into the world", will resonate across a wide-ranging audience. McGraw, who has three daughters with his wife Faith Hill had just sent his oldest daughter off to college in the fall before the song was released.
Accolades
Commercial performance
"Humble and Kind" first entered Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart at No. 45 for chart dated February 6, 2016. In late March, the song became McGraw's fifty-second Top 10country hit. Tim McGraw performed the song at the 2016 ACM Awards, which pushed its sales to 64,000 for the week, as well as the song's ranking to No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs, his 26th No. 1 on the chart. The single was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on September 20, 2016. The song reached its million sales mark in December 2016, and has sold 1,380,000 copies in the US as of November 2019.
