Country Star Tim McGraw Wrote Song for Free Solo

Country music star Tim McGraw wrote an original song for the upcoming film Free Solo called Gravity.

McGraw teamed up with singer-songwriter Lori McKenna for the National Geographic documentary, which will be mostly about Honnold’s free solo of El Capitan’s Free Rider 5.13a.

“There are few people who pursue their passion with the fearlessness of Alex Honnold,” McGraw said.

“It’s both terrifying and exhilarating to be on that journey with him when you watch Free Solo. Lori McKenna and I wanted the lyric of ‘Gravity’ to be a reminder that fear is a battle fought on a variety of planes, from mental to spiritual to physical.

“We tend to think ‘fearlessness’ is synonymous with big bold gestures, but there’s also a fragility inherent in risk — and we wanted that to come through.”

Visit Business Wire to listen to McGraw’s new song here.

Jimmy Chin and and his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi directed Free Solo, which premieres this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival. They also directed the award-winning film Meru.

Vasarhelyi has been in the film industry for a number of years and was selected as a 2013 Sundance Documentary Film Fellow, named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2005 and received an Achievement Award from Creative Visions foundation in 2008.

Tommy Caldwell wrote about Honnold’s solo of Freerider for OutsideOnline.com:

I figured that Alex would one day do it, but didn’t know whether I should encourage him to follow through on his plan, or discourage him from taking the risk…. As one of his closest friends and an El Capitan addict myself, you would think I would have a handle on what it would mean to free solo the Freerider. But I don’t. No one does. Except Alex….

We occasionally talked about the Freerider; we knew it would be the ultimate goal for him. But he always expressed hesitation about it. The route was a bit too insecure in a few spots, and too many people were expecting Alex to do it. He wanted to do it for himself, not the expectations of others.

Free Solo Trailer