Toby Keith Arrives at the Great Oil Rig in the Sky.

February 6, 2024 10:11 AM

Toby Keith - 1961-2024 Country singer Toby Keith passed away over night in his sleep at the age of 62. He revealed he'd been battling stomach cancer in 2022 Known for his ultra patriotic songs post 9/11 (e.g. “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,”) and big hits like his duet with Willie Nelson ("Beer for My Horses"), he had more than 60 charting hits. He was also known for being aggressively outspoken and was notable for his feud with the "Chicks" after their comments regarding the war in Iraq. He billed himself a conservative Democrat, became independent in 2008, praised Obama and then played at the "Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration" prior to Trump's inauguration.
posted by drewbage1847 (54 comments total)

Country music before 9/11/Country music after 9/11
posted by praemunire at 10:18 AM on February 6 [38 favorites]

The funny/sad part of that meme is that Bud Light has since been canceled by that crowd.

I was always sour with Willie for doing "Beer For My Horses", but I guess it was a payday.
posted by credulous at 10:24 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]

kris kristofferson vs. toby keith, 2003, as told by ethan hawke in rolling stone. (posted to Mastodon by Jesse Jarnow)
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 10:28 AM on February 6 [62 favorites]

And nothing of value was mourned.
posted by Kitteh at 10:28 AM on February 6 [15 favorites]

Huh. I had not grasped his age as in his 60s but then I haven't paid much attention to post-80s country music.

Stomach cancer is a hell of a way to go, even if he wasn't the greatest human being. "Should've Been a Cowboy" was EVERYWHERE in the early 90s. ( I hated it but it was kind of catchy in a terrible way).

Country music has never not been about the cosplay, so I don't really care that he wasn't "authentic" so much as that his songs didn't seem to have anything interesting going on emotionally or otherwise.
posted by emjaybee at 10:33 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]

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posted by riruro at 10:35 AM on February 6

Man his "we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way" war anthem drew equal amounts of ire and laughter back in the day. What a shitbird.
posted by kensington314 at 10:37 AM on February 6 [17 favorites]

@joesph_elmhurst - I've always laughed at that story. I don't think I'd want to cross any of the "Outlaws".

While I like Country Music, most modern popular Country leaves me cold because of it's very conservative leaning and/or "broheim lifted pickup trucks, cold beers, girls in cutoff shorts". I've always considered TK as one of the harbingers of the modern sound.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:40 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]

Toby Keith is an odd-duck, politically speaking. He wrote that 9/11 song and played shows for Trump but at the same time, he was historically a democrat and he made public statements in support of LGBTQ rights.

I think his thing was very much 'support your country, right or wrong' patriotism rather than particularly deeply held political convictions. The problem is that in this day and age, that's more than enough to put you firmly on the wrong side of history.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:49 AM on February 6 [24 favorites]

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posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:51 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

@joseph_elmhurst, Kristofferson stole that pantyhose line directly from Lyndon Johnson (although not about country music). In one of those funny coincidences, I *just* learned about that line a day or two ago, and now here it is again. Ironically, Johnson just might have been Toby Keith's kind of Democrat.
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:58 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]

kris kristofferson vs. toby keith, 2003, as told by ethan hawke in rolling stone.

Full article in Rolling Stone
and
Toby Keith's response
posted by pracowity at 11:03 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]

I liked 90s Toby Keith. Perhaps his more haunting song is "Who's That Man," in which a divorcee drives by his house where his ex-wife, now happily remarried, and kids still live. It's not sung in a manner of hatred for his wife or her new spouse, and questions if it might be emotionally harmful on his kids if he just stopped and said hello (he doesn't stop). It's almost existential in that he no longer has a life he recognizes because it belongs to someone else.

I stopped listening after 2000 for the most part, which to be honest, was mostly also true for the entire country music genre, and pivoted to listening to the older stuff.

Sympathies to those who loved him like family, but he made his bed in who he supported and how he did so.
posted by Atreides at 11:13 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]

I think I agree with TV's Frank Conniff on Insta: “I may not have agreed with Toby Keith's politics, but I didn't like his music either. Rest in peace.”
posted by ob1quixote at 11:19 AM on February 6 [41 favorites]

I was never a huge fan, even during my childhood country music days (check this space for a very different message when Tim McGraw or Garth Brooks dies), but "How Do You Like Me Now?" was a favorite song of one my more insufferable high school friends. I'll always associate the song with riding in his car wondering when he'd stop talking about himself, so that's uh something. RIP.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:21 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

I think over the past while non-shitty country artists have often pivoted to the "Americana" genre.
posted by indexy at 11:38 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]

I think over the past while non-shitty country artists have often pivoted to the "Americana" genre.

Isn't that just a marketing tag for country music for NPR listeners?
posted by kensington314 at 11:40 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]

I think over the past while non-shitty country artists have often pivoted to the "Americana" genre.

Isn't that just a marketing tag for country music for NPR listeners?

Tomato, tomato.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 11:42 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]

(I feel like whenever I've encountered modern radio country recently, it has weirdly displayed genre markers of every kind of music other than what would've been called country even 20 years ago. Like you'll have basically a Celine Dion power ballad, with some nu-metal chugga chugga, and occasionally a little bit of rapping! And sure, the accent will be non-specifically southern, but any other hallmarks of the genre are absent. It kind of makes modern country radio more interesting than other radio, but also painful to hear. Like that "Try That In a Small Town" song by Jason Aldean? It's basically a slow Whitesnake song with racist dog whistle lyrics. Not familiar enough with Toby Keith to know whether and how he contributed to that though. Just know his racist war mongering song.)
posted by kensington314 at 11:49 AM on February 6 [9 favorites]

Isn't that just a marketing tag for country music for NPR listeners?
posted by kensington314 at 2:40 PM on February 6

I grew up listening to enough country called country that I tend to call it that, but as an adult I'm a Subaru driving Jason Isbell fan so I think I might be the target audience for "Americana." It still doesn't feel like an actual thing. It's, as you say, a marketing term to mean something like "twangy music that isn't mainstream Nashville country."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:51 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]

I think he had 2 good songs in him:

Red Solo Cup, a comedic love song about you know, a red solo cup.

And
How do you like me now? which is the meanest song about unrequited love ever written, punk bands, Guns N Roses, gangster rap, metal bands - sorry you don't even come close. The theme song of the 'nice guy' movement. The whole song is a girl in high school turning him down, so he lives a life of revenge on the adult version of her. Real classy.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:54 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]

The whole song is a girl in high school turning him down, so he lives a life of revenge on the adult version of her. Real classy.

And this is a good song?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:55 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]

I'll just say, Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee" is right there people
posted by elkevelvet at 11:59 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]

Chattahoochee isn't right there, it's way down yonder.
posted by Atreides at 12:00 PM on February 6 [31 favorites]

And this is a good song?

Sure, I think you can write good songs about bad subjects, or that have mean lyrics.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]

> kris kristofferson vs. toby keith, 2003, as told by ethan hawke in rolling stone.

I also have not killed a man and/or served in the military, but I don't see why that makes my opinions less valid. I guess I'm on the same side as Kristofferson in this story but it doesn't feel like it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:03 PM on February 6

I also have not killed a man and/or served in the military, but I don't see why that makes my opinions less valid.

Talk about missing the point...
posted by kjs3 at 12:07 PM on February 6 [11 favorites]

I also have not killed a man and/or served in the military, but I don't see why that makes my opinions less valid.

I think the idea is that before getting all worked up about the glory of killing people on your country's dime, and telling other people to STF about not killing people on your country's dime, it would behoove you to have some personal experience of said killing. There's something to that.
posted by praemunire at 12:08 PM on February 6 [35 favorites]

Adeem the Artist: I Wish You Would Have Been a Cowboy, Toby Keith.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:17 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]

Always hated the guy and most of the modern country genre. However, my Mom (who surprised my during Obama's reelection by saying "I think Mr Obama's doing a fine job!") really liked his Red Solo Cup song and the new country genre as well, so I'll give him a pass.

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posted by evilDoug at 12:21 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

Several years ago I got blackout drunk and when I woke up the next morning I discovered I had downloaded a Toby Keith song ('Weed with Willie'). Since then I haven't had more than two drinks in a single week even once, and while I don't want to place that entirely at Toby Keith's feet I also cannot say he wasn't in some small part a factor.

For whatever it's worth, my wife still likes to get tipsy and she does enjoy 'Red Solo Cup' under the right circumstances.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 12:35 PM on February 6 [12 favorites]

If Kris Kristofferson had ever gotten mad at me, I would have simply died.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:37 PM on February 6 [20 favorites]

it would behoove you to have some personal experience of said killing.

Ah, I didn’t realize it was specifically about being pro-military and not about patriotism in general. (So yes, kjs3, I did miss the point, you are correct, give yourself a nice pat on the back.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:42 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

If I had to pick a Toby Keith song I actually like, I think I would go with As Good As I Once Was. It's a middle-aged fantasy about middle-aged reality and I think it's funnier than it deserves to be.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:50 PM on February 6 [10 favorites]

He represents everything wrong with country music. I won't miss him.
posted by mike3k at 12:56 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]

I used to work with a restaurant vendor and I can tell you that Toby Keith's I Love This Bar (his bar & grill chain) were some of the shittiest people I ever came across in an industry loaded with shitty people. Non-bill-paying shitheels who were sued out of existence for it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:56 PM on February 6 [11 favorites]

Cincinnati's location too!
posted by mmascolino at 1:00 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

I liked 90s Toby Keith. Perhaps his more haunting song is "Who's That Man," in which a divorcee drives by his house where his ex-wife, now happily remarried, and kids still live

His cover of Sting's I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying is another solid entry in the Divorced Guy Realizes He's Shitty But Also Realizes He Didn't Have To Be Shitty genre. He had a good voice, it was disappointing he leaned so hard into the chickenhawk shtick and party anthems took over country radio.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:02 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]

Just remembered that his racist war anthem was on an album called "Shock and Y'all."
posted by kensington314 at 1:50 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]

Iunno, fuck that guy.
posted by slogger at 2:23 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]

If Kris Kristofferson had ever gotten mad at me, I would have simply died.

Don't get him Pisstofferson.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:41 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]

How Did Toby Keith Get To Do A Concert In Saudi Arabia? (NPR)

Yeah. Only Nixon could go to China, and only Toby Keith could sing "Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack / A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in from somewhere in the back" (“Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue") in Saudi Arabia. As a guest of its government.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:18 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]

Story time. 20 years ago I was renting a bedroom, and the live in landlord really liked a local Country video cable channel. So I got to hear How do You Milk A Cow a lot.

Beats the origins. Just heard that for the first time, and it's gross, and the video is grosser.
posted by ocschwar at 5:34 PM on February 6

re: Americana (which I have also heard labeled as the NPR version of country) vs Nashville, I believe another term some of y'all may be looking for is "outlaw country".

As for Keith, what I know about him is his feud with the Chicks, and I'm still not ready to forget even if it's not my place to forgive or not. All those early 2000s guys who got mad at anti-war folks and called us fifth columnists and got mad because we didn't kiss GWB's ass enough are still on my shit list.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:41 PM on February 6 [20 favorites]

The whole song is a girl in high school turning him down, so he lives a life of revenge on the adult version of her. Real classy.

And this is a good song?

Whether good or not, it's authentically country. Your classic country themes include alcoholism, murder, adultery, and (natural) death.

Keith's incel anthem, so to speak, is pretty relatable. A 30-something man feels pretty good about himself but still retains a certain amount of anger and bitterness towards his memories of a teenage girl vis a vis the jocks and cool kids. That is a classic archetype! there is some fun in it. It is, at least, better than Mr. Keith's later work on the themes of "America, Fuck Yeah" and "We are Gonna Bomb Some ********s"

Country music is generally more fun when it taps into melodrama, and less fun when it dabbles in fascism.

Toby Keith made a lot of money off both ends of things, but I prefer to remember the melodramas
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:34 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]

A few years ago I had a sleepless night and went down a rabbit-hole of Toby Keith videos on YouTube. Among a basket of deplorables, probably the most inexcusable (so bizarre I had to watch it again just now to assure myself it was real and not just a fever-dream) is A Little Too Late, in which Toby attempts to brick up his girlfriend in the basement, only to realise (a little too late, ho ho) that he's bricked himself up by mistake. Yes folks, if you like your creepy misogyny served with a shit-eating grin ('Men do the darnedest things!') this is definitely the song for you!

On the other hand, it would be easier to dislike these songs if they weren't so damned catchy. I Wanna Talk About Me is a sexist heap of garbage about how women can't stop yakking, but simply as a song (if you can get the image of Toby Keith as a rapper out of your head), it's a first-class piece of craftsmanship, no surprise considering it's by the great Bobby Braddock, who wrote D-I-V-O-R-C-E for Tammy Wynette.

I admit, Toby Keith is a guilty pleasure for me. There, I've said it. This isn't bro country, this is dad country, it's the country music equivalent of the dad joke, and in a genre where so many artists are trying so hard to be 'outlaw' it's kind of refreshing, once in a while, to listen to a song that's about as far away from outlaw as matter is from anti-matter.
posted by verstegan at 12:33 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]

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posted by mfoight at 6:47 AM on February 7

last night I went to a friend's for dinner, five of us were hanging out and one of my friends recalled meeting Toby Keith at a show with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (Brett Kissel opening). Brett got my friend to do some work on one of his guitars, he told him to come to the show and just let security know he was bringing guitar strings and they'd let him through. Keith was performing in town that night, word got around that he would be showing up at the smaller venue. They all went out back for a smoke and sure enough, the limo pulls up, out gets Keith and he does a faceplant, I guess he was pretty far gone by then.

same friend related the following: one of the years he did Big Valley Jamboree, Toby Keith came on stage to a big fanfare: horn section you name it, big show. He might've got into a few numbers but the sky opened up and it was like a celestial bucket of water was dumped on the festival, lightning, just a big dose of weather. Most people stayed out in the field, the storm passed, Keith and the band came back out, played a solid two hours.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:11 AM on February 7 [2 favorites]

I was a college exchange student in the US in the winter of 2002-03. It was a weird time to be in the States, and only got weirder in hindsight. We international students at the college would sometimes have little parties, mostly just to decompress from the strangeness of being a foreigner in America. One night, while fairly drunk, we had a sing-a-long of Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue, and then sang it again, and that was a really cathartic moment for us foreigners. Since then I've had a bit of a soft spot for that big oaf, even though I can't listen to a single one of his songs without getting a strong desire to bathe my brain in the music of the Stanley Brothers and the Carter Family.
posted by Kattullus at 8:28 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]

Sometimes, it can be ok to be of different opinions. Has really noone linked Stephen Colberts Tribute yet? This guy gave a standing ovation to Obama.

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posted by flamewise at 11:07 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]

If you enjoy the melodies and twang of Country music, give Les Cowboys Fringants a listen some time. Let's just say that Quebecois truckers prefer songs that honestly discuss the myriad ways in which trucking sucks.
posted by ocschwar at 7:55 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]

If only the grim reaper had been content to stop with Toby and leave mojo alone
posted by allium cepa at 1:09 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]

I had never heard “How Do You Like Me Now” until the video was linked above. I still haven’t really heard it, because I stopped halfway through the first chorus. He was freaking abusive to her in high school (writing her number and “call for a good time” on the 50 yard line) because he liked her? And now he thinks she’s going to regret not going out with him, because lots of other misogynists like him. Yeah, I don’t think she regretted it at all.

Good riddance. I’ll spit on his grave if I ever get the chance.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:01 AM on February 9 [1 favorite]

rot in piss
posted by schyler523 at 5:35 AM on February 9 [1 favorite]