— Toby Keith (@tobykeith) February 6, 2024
[text]Toby passed peacefully last night on February 5th, surrounded by his family. He fought his fight with grace and courage. Please respect the privacy of his family at this time.
* Keith began his recording career in 1993 and had success on the country charts but wasn’t able to break through to a larger audience
* in 2002, he recorded “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, which featured lines like “the eagle will fly man, it’s gonna be hell/ When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell” and “we’ll put a boot in your ass / It’s the American way”. This spurred him on to a much higher level of success with several number 1 albums
* Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks called the song “ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant”. In response, Keith used a backdrop at his concerts showing a shopped photo of Maines being hugged by Saddam Hussein
* Another song, “Beer for My Horses”, released around the same time, seemed to advocate lynching and extrajudicial police shootings, containing the lines “Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree / Round up all of them bad boys, hang them high in the street” and “It’s time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground / Send them all to their maker and he’ll settle ’em down”
* He was also instrumental in getting a young singer named Taylor Swift a record contract
* Also he was happy to play at Donald Trump’s inaguration in 2017
Honestly if you weren’t around for it, it’s impossible to state how emblematic this guy was of the utter rockheaded stupidity that fomented in the wake of 9/11 and the George W Bush years. This hustling clown was held up by serious people as an avatar of what a real American should be. Good riddance
