What does Red Ragtop mean?

Tim McGraw: Red Ragtop Meaning

Album cover for Red Ragtop album cover

Song Released: 2002


Red Ragtop Lyrics

I was twenty and she was eighteen
We were just about as wild as we were green
In the ways of the world
She'd pick me up in that red ragtop
We were free of the folks and hiding from the cops
On a summer night
Running all the red lights
We'd park...

  1. anonymous
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    Jan 26th 2020 !⃝

    Tim and his girlfriend meetup and she picks him up in her red convertible. They park far out in a grove and make love. She becomes pregnant as a result. However, they are not prepared for a baby and make the difficult choice to have an abortion. It was such a signifigant event that they eventually break up after taking one last trip around the sun in the convertible, and the song seemingly ends. It does not, and picks back up as if it is a continuation in a different time. Tim refelects back on the experience after seeing a girl with green eyes in a similar convertible at a red light. He is reminiscent and nostalgic about the whole thing. I think the song serves a a cautionary tale about this type of relationship at that age.

  2. anonymous
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    Jan 17th 2020 !⃝

    The song is about how abortion is not inconsequential as much as you try to convince yourself otherwise. The couple thought they could move on from it as if it hadn’t happened but it in the end, they broke up because of it.

  3. anonymous
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    Jan 14th 2018 !⃝

    The song to me is as much a cautionary tale told from the perspective of being a man in a relationship that is all fun and wild until the girl ends up pregnant, he has no job and possibly no good prospects at the time and she was in school, maybe college, maybe high school, they decide to have an abortion. They think they can move on together afterwards, but after a year she breaks it off with him, he sees a young girl in a convertible at a stoplight and laments his lost lover

  4. anonymous
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    Nov 22nd 2013 !⃝

    They were two young people who shared their first sexual experience together which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Which lead them to make an adult decision about the unplanned pregnancy. They said there would be no regrets and she moved on with her life leaving him and the thoughts of the child behind. His thoughts traveled back in time when he sees a young girl who lookeslike his babys mother . He has no idea what became of the young girl he knew from his past .

  5. anonymous
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    Apr 11th 2012 !⃝

    For the comment above me, It is about an abortion. We were young and wild
    We decided not to have the child
    So we did what we did and we tried to forget
    And we swore up and down there would be no regrets
    In the morning light
    But on the way home that night
    they decided not to have a child and then had and abortion, and on the way back that night she told him not to stop loving her because of what she had done. It also gives you clues to abortion because he said you pay for your sins.
    It was not his daughter in the car it was a person who reminded him of the girl he got pregnant. she was in a car that reminded him of that girl and he then was remembering how that summer was in the red rag top

  6. anonymous
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    May 17th 2011 !⃝

    Okay For those who keep thinking they "got rid of the baby" as in abortion, its not abortion, it was ADOPTION. the Young Girl He Seen Later On, Was His DAUGHTER.. who was the spitting Image Of Her Mom, Hence Why He Started Reminiscing.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
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    Apr 6th 2011 !⃝

    This song is told by the man at an older age of two young people who were caught up in there feelings for each other that turn into love. As things go on the girl ends up pregnant. They decide that they are too young, too inexspericed, and so they decide to get rid of the baby. They love each other but as the summer goes on they drift apart, leaving them sepratated. Then years past he stops at a light and sees this girl who for some reason brings back the memory of that summer and he realizes that its just a memory now because he doesnt know where his old girlfriend ended up. Its a sad song to me.. because this song strangly explains me at the age of 18.

  8. anonymous
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    May 24th 2008 !⃝

    This song is about a couple who in a young love and him an his girlfriend decided not to have a baby but that nigh they had sex in his car like they do a lot and I guess they broke up and she got abortion and he didn't know about it

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. mastermind32
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    May 2nd 2008 !⃝

    The story is about a young man and woman that got pregnant at an early age the girl has an abortion and as a result of that decision only last for another year and the story is told by the man now older and wiser because he sees a young girl in the car that he used to have back then also one of Tim McGraw's greatest songs ever.


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