Toby Keith’s legacy may be post-9/11 American anger

NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) – Toby Keith’s For some, the songs served the purpose of great art: They comforted people in challenging times, particularly American service members and their families during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. To others, Keith’s work sowed division and was blindly patriotic – a rift that deepened America’s cultural fault lines.

Keith, who died of stomach cancer on Monday The 62-year-old is being celebrated for her vast repertoire on a wide variety of subjects, from small-town heartache to her choice of For the red solo cup. But in the fractured political landscape of 2024 America, it is the long-tail legacy of “The Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” that may be best remembered.

For many in post-9/11 America, the 2002 song captured the mood. It contained this lyric: “We will put a shoe in your ass. It’s the American way.”

Keith’s move toward overt nationalism in his music defined his career and helped set country music, at least one form of it, on a more political path that continues to be reflected in the music of such people today. Continuing. jason aldean on the right and jason isbell left side. And yet many observers say it would be unfair to focus solely on those pages from Keith’s songbook.

Chris Willman, who wrote the 2005 book, “Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country,” says, “You have to recognize that (Keith) was a good songwriter, and no matter what political ideology you’re in, there’s love to be had. The songs exist.” music.”

Willman says that some people are struggling with Keith’s legacy because of his overtly political lyrics. But the guy also wrote fun tunes about male virility and smoking marijuana Willie Nelson.

“When people are making a point about a handful of songs, you almost want to defend them,” says Willman, Variety’s chief music critic. “And yet, I completely understand where people are coming from. And I’m not sure I disagree with him when he says he had some negative influences in terms of making country music about angry Americans.

Country music has always had a political thread

Amanda Marie Martinez, author of the upcoming “Gone Country: How Nashville Transformed a Music Genre Into a Lifestyle Brand,” says country music has never been insulated from the social and political forces of country.

The genre emerged in the 1920s during Jim Crow America, when music executives traveled to the South and recorded along racial lines, thereby establishing the myth of country music as an “exclusively white culture,” says Martínez. Are. Conservatives have looked to country music for decades to express political beliefs and respond to social change.

During the Vietnam War era, merle haggard Sang “Okie from Muskogee” – an anti-progress song in which he sings, “We don’t burn our draft cards on Main Street.” And while Haggard became a hero among conservatives, He later endorsed prominent Democrats., The man who supported Ronald Reagan and performed for Richard Nixon will write a song to promote Hillary Clinton and commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama. He also sang, “Let’s get out of Iraq.”

Like Haggard, Keith was politically cryptic. He was a registered Democrat until 2008. He attended events for Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Donald Trump.

Joseph M. Thompson, author of “Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism,” says, “If we look for a kind of continuity throughout his career, it’s his class politics “

“He’s aware of his humble roots and those are what he sings about,” says Thompson.

‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue’ was an anthem after 9/11

in the weeks following September 11 terrorist attacks, The nation felt somewhat unified. In that environment, “Etiquette” functioned like traditional folk music, in a way that reflected how many people felt at the time. And more composers began writing songs that actually addressed the wartime situation in real time.

For example, alan jackson Wrote his introspective “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Spinning)” about 9/11. It lacked the incendiary vengeance of Keith’s anthem, although Jackson did sing that he couldn’t tell you the difference between Iraq and Iran. There’s Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten?” and Clint Black’s “Iraq and I Roll”, among others.

Keith’s song was by far the most popular. And it was at least partially fueled by a public feud with The Chicks, Then known as the Dixie Chicks, On Natalie Maines’s opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. Maines called Keith’s song “ignorant”, while Keith began performing in front of a doctored photo of Maines with Saddam Hussein.

Keith was a Cena fan, and vice versa.

In the years following “Courtesy” Keith participated in 18 USO tours, performing for more than 250,000 service members over his lifetime. John A. Lucas, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, says Keith’s songs celebrated military personnel and their families in a new way.

“Their songs speak to the men and women who win our wars,” says Lucas, 80, who lives outside Richmond, Virginia, and now writes a personal blog on Substack. “Bravo Blue.”

Last summer, Aldean released the biggest hit of his career, the controversial “Try it in a small town.” The music video shows Aldean performing in front of the Tennessee Courthouse, which was the site of a 1946 race riot and the 1927 lynching of an 18-year-old black teenager.

People called the video a “dog whistle”; Others labeled it “pro-lynching”. The outrage mobilized conservatives, whose support brought the song to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Willman, Variety’s critic, sees an entire line from Keith’s “Courtesy” to Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” or Oliver Anthony. “The Rich Man North of Richmond.” “Keith encouraged other people in country music to think about what viewpoints that might be considered angry and conservative are OK to express,” says Willman.

That anger, he says, is part of Keith’s legacy because it made some musicians think, “Yes, there is a market for this kind of righteous anger.”

Pat Finnerty, who creates a YouTube show called “What Makes This Song Stink”, also sees similarities between “Courtesy” and “Small Town”.

“If we’re using wrestling analogies — and why shouldn’t we — Toby Keith is Hulk Hogan,” Finnerty says. “If Hogan’s move was a leg drop, Keith’s move would be the flag. He’s the Hulk Hogan of this ‘We Are Americans’ brand. We are the best country in the world. And we can never do anything wrong.”

Finnerty, 43, of Philadelphia, built a hour long video Why he thinks “Small Town” is a terrible track. The thing about “Small Town” and “Courtesy”, claims Finnerty, is that each feels calculated, as if it was written only to make money. Keith capitalized on 9/11, while Aldean took advantage of the country’s cultural divide.

“If you took ‘Hey Jude’ and made it about a muffler, it would still be a great song,” Finnerty says. “But if you took ‘Small Town’ and did that, it wouldn’t work. The lyrics of these songs are attracting attention.

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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed reporting from Los Angeles.